


Misaligned

by hexnhart



Series: Going AWOL, Staying Sane [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars - The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Asexual Rey, Canon-Typical Violence, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Force Choking, Force-Sensitive Hux, Inappropriate Use of the Force, M/M, Multi, PTSS - Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, Politics, Post-TLJ, Propaganda, Slow Burn, The Force, defector!Hux, rebuilding the Resistance, scenes of sexual nature in later chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-02-22 16:43:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13171005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hexnhart/pseuds/hexnhart
Summary: After General Hux's defection to the Resistance, the remains of the First Order, under the command of Kylo Ren, withdraw to regroup. In the quiet interim, what remains of the Resistance tries to recover as well, incorporating Hux into its structure. Moral compromises have to be made, especially since the errant General just might be attuned to the Force.





	1. Ask me if I liked it

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I've been trying to churn out a one-shot for about two weeks, but the best I managed is what looks to be the start of a very weird multi-chapter exploration of Hux's moral compass (or lack thereof).  
> *  
> Not beta-read. I've been proofreading postgrad applications and if I start editing my creative work as well I'll go murderous. Sorry for any mistakes or inconsistencies.  
> *  
> Comments and constructive criticism always welcome. I'm hex-n-hart on tumblr if you fancy a chat.

“You remind me of my father,” Leia said it so simply that Hux did not at first grasp the implications. Then he was minutely miffed that Kylo was not there to hear it.

“How so?”

“With all your success and fearsome reputation, it takes one person believing in you for you to do a 180.”

It was close enough to the truth not to warrant a reply, though Hux hoped his existence was not as entirely lonely as Vader’s had been according to the Imperial records. His crew – at least, those who were left on the Finalizer after he commandeered it in the name of the Resistance – eyed him and General Organa hesitantly.

He had given them a fair choice, Hux reminded himself: to defect with him or take the personnel shuttles whither they would. In the ensuing ship-wide silence, lieutenant Mitaka had been the first to speak, “Question, sir?”

Hux noded.

“Would the alternative be to stay under Kylo Ren’s command?”

Oh, clever boy. He should thank Mitaka later.

“Yes, Lieutenant. As Kylo Ren is now self-appointed Supreme Leader, you will be taking orders from him,” there was an unspoken ‘and everything else’ in that sentence as well.

That tipped the scales: there was enough personnel left on the Finalizer to pilot it with a skeletal crew. The Millenium Falcon docked in one of the aft hangars, General Organa took her place at the bridge as if it was her right.

Now, here she stood, grey robes reflected in the polished black floor like a swathe of moonlight. In deference, Hux took up position half a step behind her. The hale members of the Resistance, all ten of them, stood around the perimeter, pointedly avoiding eye contact with the bridge crew. The scene reminded Hux of harvest on Arkanis, when hopper mice and lizards and all sorts of small beasts end up pressed together in the last sward of unreaped wheat, friend and foe desperate as the jaws of the harvester droid draw closer.

“Orders?” he asked, low enough not to be overheard. He trusted her to be prudent enough to allow him command of his own ship during the transition period. Given that, he was still unsure as to his official status within the Resistance.

“Make for the Outer Rim, occupy one of the old Rebellion bases, restock, send a call out to our allies…”

“General, if I may,” Hux stepped closer to Leia, keeping his suggestions from prying ears, “Setting up a base closer to the Core will allow us better networking. Left in charge of the Order, Kylo Ren is likely to pull away to the Outer Rim to regroup. In the meantime, we launch a propaganda campaign, target those who trade in war. Once we have sponsors, we can start recruiting, that way what we tell those people will not be just empty promises.”

Leia measured him up with her keen grey eyes, “Are you sure the Order will withdraw?”

“Positive,” Hux smiled tightly, “I suggested the plan to Ren myself.”

“Very well. And which planet would you recommend? The Resistance has no bases in the Core.”

“Avrasa, a planet in the Naboo System. Long dedicated to pleasure outings of the rich and powerful.”

“Your suggestion will be considered,” Leia stepped away, signalling the end of the conversation.

Hux raised the volume, speaking for everyone’s benefit, “What are your plans for the Finalizer?”

“We cannot afford to strip and scuttle, so looks like we’re stuck with the ride for now.”

“Splendid,” Poe grumbled at the console, “Cruising a Star Destroyer into the criminal underworlds’ spa retreat is sure to send the right message.”

Leia rounded on him, “And what would you have us do, Commander Dameron? Without a ship or a base, how far are you prepared to take us before realising we have no way of replenishing supplies or offering medical aid?”

Poe fell silent, still glowering daggers at Hux. It was blatantly obvious that it is not the plan, but the planner he had issues with. It would not have bothered Hux in the Order, by the Resistance ran on personal recommendation, so keeping on Dameron’s good side could prove necessary.

He kept his face neutral through the ensigns’ routine update on fuel levels and shield status, then followed General Organa out.

In the corridor, Rey waited for him in a shadowed alcove, looking more like Ren than Hux would care to admit. They did not speak as she fell in step with him on their way to the conference chamber.

Once there, Leia ordered a profile for Avrasa pulled up on the holoscreen.

A class D planet with a temperate climate, abundant fresh- and salt-water bodies and timid wildlife. Governed by the subsidiary of the Nabooian Council. Key industries are in the hospitality centre, a couple small laboratories produce high-end cosmetics. This year, Avrasa celebrates 15 years as a neutral zone.

The turquoise planet on the screen was about as far from a warzone as could be. Hux surveyed the faces of Leia’s entourage, noting that Dameron was not among them. Most were still drawn with shock, hardly comprehending what they are being shown.

“And interesting choice, Mr Hux,” General Organa said, seeing that no comments are forthcoming from the room, “Could you elaborate on the reason behind suggesting it to me.”

Hux stood and clicked his heels out of pure habit, drawing some incredulous glances to himself, “Avrasa houses two high-profile resorts, Cochinel and Centre Nine. Keeping close to either of them will guarantee the Resistance protection from airstrikes. They would draw too much press, and no one wants to lose patrons, most of whom have vacation mansions on the planet. The First Order is critically short on funds, and the transition of command to a… less than apt candidate is bound to aggravate the matter.”

Furthermore, House of Ishree, the arms trading cartel, maintain a constant presence in Cochinel. Their contribution is invaluable if the Resistance seeks to replenish its munitions. I believe General Organa will be able to confirm that House of Ishree weapons are of sufficient quality.”

Leia nodded reluctantly; here was another business that cuts deals with both sides.

“Therefore, I conclude, Avrasa can be used as a staging ground for our subsequent relationships with the powers that be.”

Hux sat back down, and a wiry woman with a halo of corkscrew hair rose to speak, “The plan is sound, but I beg the question why a disgraced First Order General is deciding our course of action. What’s in it for you?”

“I am here to win a war. What side I do this on is of no import.”

The room swam a little, the strain of the past weeks must have finally caught up with Hux. The woman looked displeased with his answer, but did not press the matter.

“Thank you, Mr Hux, for your input. Considering the… rapid nature of the recent events, would you like to take a walk while the options are discussed,” Leia effortlessly took stock of the room, shifting the focus to herself.

In any other situation, Hux would have been offended at being thrown out of the room like some rookie lieutenant while the grown-ups decided, but he was too tired. He stood and slid out of the room, his greatcoat swishing against the sliding doors.

Rey followed him, like an all too familiar shadow, and for a split second as he rounded the bend of a corridor Hux felt the nauseating wave of fear. His throat closed up like an iron clamp had been placed over his oesophagus and he had to brace his arm on the wall.

“Armitage?” she insisted on using that name, but that was for the best. The illusion passed, he could breathe again, because Ren… damn it, Ren never called him that.

Close to him, she smelled of engine grease and ozone, “Medbay.”

He did not bother arguing; unlike some, he did not actually try to work himself into an early grave, but said grave was constantly coming up to meet him.

Once in the medbay, he shrugged out of his coat and jacket, rolled up his sleeves, the movements jerky and disjointed. Rey watched. Put her and Ren together and they could outstare the Universe. Somehow, that sounded hilarious in Hux’s head. The droid chirped into activity, prodding him with needles and sensor-arms. Rey hopped onto a cot next to his examination chair, tucking her arms under her knees, but still within easy reach of the blaster strapped to her thigh.

“Critical iron deficiency. Lack of vitamins A, D and B12. Extensive bruising over neck, chest and along the spinal column. Possibility of a fractured rib. Would you like to proceed with an X-Ray?” the droid reported.

What else was new? Hux waved the droid away, letting it scurry to the cabinet for an assortment of medicines.

“Did he do this?” Rey stared at the mottled bruising on his neck. It was fading, but still bore the unmistakable shape of clenched fingers, “I sense him, through the Force… I even thought I understood him, but I refuse to comprehend this…”

“You did not ask me if I enjoyed it.”

The droid came back with an anti-inflammatory gel and a cup of multi-coloured pills. Hux wished it had brought a tranquiliser shot as well.

“You chose not to stop him,” Rey said, barely audible against the background hum of the ship. Her eyes were half-lidded, maybe she was as tired as Hux felt. Maybe there had been a tranquiliser among the colourful pills he had swallowed without water.

The gel felt good on his neck, though hands would have felt better, and then with a minimal application of force he could tip into oblivion and finally rest.

“…somewhere in you. Maybe so deep you do not realise it yourself…”

He wondered whether she was still here because he was easier to save than Ren, a convenient pet project for a powerful Force-user, changing hands, changing allegiances, discarded once the novelty of the uptight little general wears off.

“… eventually wake up, there will be no hiding it…”

What was it Leia said? He reminded her of her father, Vader, more machine than man, reduced at the end to a single purpose – to be redeemed by Luke Skywalker, the legend. Would he, Armitage Hux, be replaced piece by piece by chromate steel? Had he been already? Was this what the metal clamp feeling on his throat really was?

“You can always choose not to bow.”

He drifted.


	2. Refugees in Paradise

“Exiting Hyperspace in ten,” an ensign informed Leia, sure fingers flying over the console, priming the Finalizer for exit. The hull vibrated with a deep hum as the stars around the ship shrank from hot white lines back into pinpricks on the canvas of space. To their starboard, a planet loomed, its blue surface peppered by the shadow of an asteroid belt.

Over the course of their journey, the errant Finalizer crew had rustled up what passed for informal wear, and now straightened their collars in preparation for contact with Avrasa’s Ground Control.

Commander Aurelie of the Resistance took on the role of comms officer, so it was she who picked up the signal, “General, we’re being hailed.”

“Ground Control?”

“I’m not sure, General. They’re scrambling the rebound.”

“Patch them through,” Leia squared her shoulders as a clipped male voice sounded through the speakers.

“Traitorous scum, how long did you think you could avoid the consequence of your actions!”

Aurelie froze, but Leia, without missing a beat, turned to Poe, “Be kind and fetch Mr Hux. This is for him.”

The pilot fished out a handheld communicator, “Bridge to Hugs, get over here.”

In five minutes, Hux, huddled into his greatcoat, creases from the pillow still pressed into his cheek, strode onto the bridge.

“General Organa,” his voice sounded hoarse.

“It seems you have a communique,” Leia motioned towards the comms. The bridge was alight with activity, as shields were amped up and canons primed, just in case.

“I will not be mocked! This is your last opportunity to comprehend your failure before I order you blown out of the sky!” the voice raged.

Hux scrubbed a palm through his hair, “Commodore Vlahos, how kind of you to call. How come your ship is equipped with a hyperspace tracker? The technology was specifically reserved for outstanding personnel.”

There was a sound of enraged sputtering on the other end.

“As for blowing us out of the sky… surely, you would not expect the Finalizer to be unshielded? Nor do you think Starkiller tech had not been installed on the Finalizer first. In fact, you are about to decide attacking us is a very bad idea.”

The bridge crew watched Hux: he was no longer dwarfed by his coat, and the sleep shadows gave his face a feral edge. He waited a beat as the connection cut, before turning to General Organa. She, in turn, regarded him curiously.

“General, they’re powering down the canons.”

The other ship banked and shot away into hyperspace, and not a second sooner Avrasa Ground Control hailed them with a cheerful fanfare.

“Welcome to the Avrasa Neutral Zone. State your call sign and reason of visit.”

Leia gave Hux a little ushering motion.

“This is the Finalizer. Purpose of visit: trade negotiations with the House of Ishree.”

The voice on the other end went hazy for a moment – probably dialling their superiors, “Welcome, Finalizer. Permission to coast in orbit granted. The Ishree representatives will not be notified. Would you like to pass on a message?”

“Please notify them that the negotiations will be held on behalf of the Resistance,” General Organa interjected, before the dispatcher acknowledged the request and bid them a good time.

“I am going planetside in the Falcon. Aurelie, stay on comms.”

Everything was rolling suspiciously smoothly, though Hux, still riding off the effect of the tranquiliser, could hardly be counted as a reliable observer. He shot Poe a venomous glare – Hugs? Really? Again? – and skulked off in search of caf.

Halfway to his destination, he noticed that Rey was tailing him, looking well-rested and calm. No guilty conscience, then.

“Why do you follow me?”

“I’m least likely to brain you with the butt of a blaster,” Rey caught up with him in the doorway of the officers’ mess, “and I am still in contact with Kylo. You can give me context if he says anything about the Order’s plans.”

Hux decided breakfast was, for once, more important that finding out exactly how the girl communicated with Ren. This war was bringing out the worst in him. He had to bite back a curse when the dispenser ran out of caf, snatching up a cup of some scalding bland infusion and ‘balanced protein and fibre’ meal pack.

The previous day teased him with half-remembered conversations.

“Rey, yesterday… we spoke about…”

“We didn’t talk about anything. You were out like a light,” she glanced at a commlink she had started wearing on her wrist – because of him, so she can send a distress call – for the time, “You’ve been asleep for 30 hours. I thought you just… did stuff like that.”

Hux groaned. Great, now he was incapable of staying awake.

“No. I do not ‘just do stuff like that’.”

He had almost finished his drink when Finn’s shadow fell across him, and Rey tensed visibly in her seat, but kept her eyes on her food. Hux had not seen the former Stormtrooper since overseeing his attempted execution.

“Will wonders never cease.” Finn said without preamble.

“Would you like to sit?” the former General offered, knowing it would be declined.

“I forgive you, I think,” Finn’s face was drawn, like he had a toothache, but he did not give his voice a chance to waver, “I hate you, of course, we all do. But now I have seen you, you’re no different from any Stormtrooper. Your conditioning program is just called something different. And I’d forgive them, even if they were murderers. So, it only seems fair.”

“And easier?” Hux added thoughtfully, looking up at Finn.

“Yeah, that too. It’s awfully hard to ignore you if there are, like, 40 people on the ship.”

Next to him, Rey stood to give Finn a quick hug. Some kind of social tableau was unfolding for Hux’s benefit, but he could not quite summon the will to care. He ate what was left of his tasteless meal and excused himself to get ready for making planetfall.

Finn stayed behind with Rey, marching his fingers over the table to steal her piece of toast. When Rey did not try to bat him away, his face grew concerned, “What’s wrong?”

“He has the Force. Well, everyone does, but he can use it. Like me.”

“Seven hells! Are you sure? Does Leia know? Did you tell him?” Finn almost shouted, dropping his voice at the last question. Other crew at the mess, mostly former Order personnel, showed incredible interest in their food trays.

“I did. On the first day, but I don’t think he remembers. I wasn’t sure, even then. And Leia must know. She’s made a few comments, and she’s just messaged me that we almost got fried by a First Order cruiser and he made it go away. She only didn’t tell you because she didn’t want to raise a panic. We’re in Neutral Space, so they can’t get us.”

Finn still looked peaky, “Somehow that is not reassuring. I can’t believe you didn’t notice earlier, though. You were sitting right next to him during that broadcast and all.”

“Yeah, I was going into an interview that would decide all of our futures, having only discovered the Force was a thing this year. So yeah, excuse me if I didn’t notice the enemy General was also a Force-user!”

He had the good sense to look shamed, “Sorry. It’s just… before there was just Ren, now there’s two of them.”

“Not if I can help it.”

*

Poe caught up with Leia in the bay where the Falcon primed its engines, “You’re taking Connix _and_ D’Acy with you. That’s putting all eggs in one basket.”

“If you only have three eggs, there isn’t much of a choice,” Leia smiled, “Besides, I’m leaving you here.”

The Falcon’s door sealed behind what remained of the Resistance command, two pilots and Hux, leaving Poe in the middle of the empty hangar.

As the battered ship made its looping descent towards the equatorial plane, the monotone blue of the planet resolved into weather systems and glimpses of a greenish sea through the breaks in the clouds. Cochenil was a sprawling city, banded with verdant boulevards and canals that fed into the two lakes that bordered it. Maintained by old money families, it lacked the cheap lustre of Outer Rim gambling dens, and could be called tastefully reserved by an inobservant passer-by. At least, until they saw the immaculate landing strip of burnished copper, flanked by delicate Hashigo trees that had to be replanted every time a landing shuttle came in with too much tail-wind.

A bevy of prim attendants waited at the end of the strip to usher Leia’s delegation into the port building and then onwards into a transport that would take them to the House of Ishree. The armsdealers’ residence covered a large coastal swathe of one of the lakes, with single-storey pavilions placed artfully here and there. Their transport stopped at the one imitating the senatorial palace on Akiva.

Hux was not a regular at the House, but had enough dealings with them to recognise the twins Almia and Tomlin, cousins to the main family and small shareholders, who came out to meet the delegation. They had elected Cochenil as their seat for the parties, the glitz and the gossip, making it their business to know everything about everyone. Even as he entered the lavishly appointed summerhouse, a surveillance drone floated over to hover over his head.

“Keeping security tight?” Hux asked Almia when she leaned over to give him an exaggerated kiss on the cheek.

“Oh no, this is for personal enjoyment. You are something of a celebrity, General Hux,” she mispronounced his name with a heavy guttural ‘u’. She and Poe would get along, “Or have you changed your name to match your new identity?”

“Just Hux is sufficient.”

Meanwhile, Tomlin was paying obeisance to Leia, “General Organa, radiant as always. Please, drinks are served in the lake-side lounge.”

The spacious lounge, spanning the length of the pavilion’s eastern wing, overlooked the still waters of the Marble lake, its silica-rich waters one of Avrasa’s main attractions. An array of multi-coloured pitchers was set out on a sideboard along with imaginatively shaped glassware.

Leia’s Resistance entourage shuffled impatiently, inconvenienced by the opulence and the languid manner of their hosts. Both Hux and Leia, however, took their time. This deal could not be rushed.

“So, what brings the talk of the Galaxy to our humble doorstep?” Tomlin asked after half an hour of pleasantries.

“A creative and rewarding project,” Hux said. The drone still hovered next to him, blinking a small red light.

“The Galaxy is unbalanced. The old order is fraying, but the people are tired of constant upheavals,” Hux tried to ignore the barb in Leia’s choice of words, “Give the people stability and secure yourself a spot in the future.”

“And where do you come into this?” Almia joined in.

“Think of us as of a taskforce, the people doing the legwork. You provide the means, and we deliver them to where they are most needed. You are seen as the benefactors, and we return to what the Resistance has always stood of: providing for those that have not.”

“Certainly, in order to trust us, the people need to know who we are. Not just a bunch of pilots who fight the First Order. We are here to protect today, for a fairer tomorrow.”

They had argued about the catchphrase on the way from the Finalizer. Leia objected to a ‘better tomorrow’, while Hux pointed out that ‘fairer’ implied they were law enforcers. In the end, they decided to play it by ear and rely on the reaction of the sponsors.

“With your help, we hope to launch a campaign that will reintroduce us to the Galaxy.”

Almia tapped her fingers against the bowl of the glass she held in her other hand in an imitation of applause, “An excellent pitch.”

The praise was genuine, and with a bit to and fro, a tentative deal was brokered for a base in an empty Ishree hangar on the outskirts of Cochenil, a squadron of T70 X-wings and recording equipment.

They declined an invitation to dinner and were back on the Finalizer before the reddish star put the ship in Avrasa’s shadow.


	3. Good and Honest People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The base on Avrasa sends its first broadcast, but Hux is not best pleased with the outcome. Rey ponders the morality of the Force. Everything goes according to plan and nobody is happy about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Wishing you all a terrific fandom year :3
> 
> Thank you for your comments and support, everyone, it means a lot! So far, there are a lot of questions set up, but answers are forthcoming, I promise. As always, comments/observations/corrections welcome.

The Star Destroyer Conquest drifted through an asteroid field on the edge of Known Space. Dim stars and the doused lighting aboard ship added to the oppressive atmosphere. So did the corpse of Commodore Vlahos on the floor.

The newly-appointed General Sileki and his second in command glanced nervously from the strangled Vlahos to their Supreme Leader. This was the first time they saw him without the mask: a ghastly face with exaggerated features, bisected by a scar, dark hair hanging around it in untidy curls, a roving wild stare.

“Get me Hux,” Kylo Ren growled, and the two men took a knee, afraid to follow Vlahos’ fate, “I will not be failed again.”

Once he was alone, Ren tipped his head back to rest against the angular top of his throne and stared at the ceiling. It was dark and silent.

The first thing he noticed past the direct aftermath of the battle on Crait was time – there was so much of it. Beheaded, the Order ran like clockwork on inertia for a while, leaving very little for Kylo to do. And once Hux had defected, taking a good portion of the Finalizer’s crew with him, those small mechanisms he had set in motion ground to a halt. Kylo was fain to start them up again, because he had only a vague notion of what needed to be done. Snoke prepared him to be an Enforcer, not the leader of a bureaucratic machine. A small voice niggled that Snoke did not prepare him for anything at all.

Second was the silence. Before then, Kylo did not realise that the vast majority of his conversations had been with Hux.

“You’re like a child crying for his favourite toy,” Rey’s voice. Her presence never left him, but now he felt as if he was looking at her through a sheet of transparisteel. He had hoped she would understand his vision, the grand plan to strip the Galaxy of all that was holding them down and build anew, wholly disconnected from the past, but there was only pity in her eyes.

“Not a toy. A tool,” tipping his head back left his throat uncomfortably exposed and Ren shifted, still fixing Rey in his mind’s eye, “Did he tell you he tried to kill me? After we fought and I lay on the floor of Snoke’s chamber.”

He could picture perfectly Hux’s pale face and the hand sliding under the greatcoat for his blaster, the feverish shine of his eyes.

“The same way Luke tried? You better tell me what stopped him, then.”

Fear, natural subservience, the training of a man shaped for obedience. And yet, only a few hours before that there had been that sly smile as they passed each other in the audience chamber. That was not an expression of a servant, nor of a person indifferent to anything but duty.

In that room, there was a split moment when they felt Snoke’s strangle-hold fall away and in the vacuum of power, in the absence of Rey, Kylo sensed a glimmer of something, close enough to touch. But it was swept aside for the sake of power, of sating the impulse that kept him toe to toe with Hux in a battle of his own devising.

Kylo tentatively offered the scene to Rey, down to the sensation of crushing the other man’s windpipe.

“You know he did not want that power for himself; he was afraid of losing you to it,” the response baffled him, but she was already gone, subsiding into more silence, and time, and absence.

*

Rey cracked her knuckles and stretched. Every Force-link session came easier, the books helped, but her friends still insisted that they were present in case she passed out or something. She was cooped up in the Falcon with Finn, Poe and Rose, trying to warm a can of soup using a power-cell from a bowcaster as a heat-source. Finn held the half-disassembled thing, while Rey slowly rotated the can in mid-air above it. A haughty porg guarded the door.

“What I don’t get is why are you still talking to him,” Poe said, “He’s an unbalanced, homicidal piece of trash.”

“It’s not about me,” Rey countered, “If you had a free information tap to the enemy’s command, would you abandon it because it made you feel uncomfortable?”

They lapsed into silence, Finn switched the hand he held the bowcaster with.

“There’s something else, something Snoke said before Kylo killed him. Darkness rises and light to meet it. Somehow, I don’t think I’m the light.”

Finn moved his free arm so it brushed against Rey’s side, “But you are! You’re one of the good guys.”

She shook her head, sending the can to spin in a figure eight, “The Force isn’t good or bad, it’s not inherently moral. When I was on the island on Ahch-To, there was a place… A place under the island fixed in the dark side, just as the island itself was fixed in the light. It called to me, offering answers. Back then, I did not know what to ask, or rather, I did not understand which question it answered. There was this sort of… mirror. And I saw myself.”

Rey spoke faster now, in a rush to get the words out, “And in the mosaic pool in Luke’s chamber, I saw myself as well. It was about being present, both in the light and in the dark, about connecting the two. That’s how you achieve balance.”

The can burst, showering everything in hot soup. Finn flicked the power-cell off as Poe scrambled for a rag and the porg waddled over to lap at the spilled droplets. Rey stayed where she was, brows knit in concentration, “Darkness rises and light to meet it… to connect with it.

“When I was alone on Jakku, the Force was still there, but it was dormant, like an engine without ignition. Then I met you,” she glanced at Finn, “and then it worked. Maybe, Kylo being disconnected from his family is what is screwing him up so much?”

“Yeah, that can screw you up a lot,” Rose spoke for the first time, playing with the crescent amulet at her throat.

“But we offered him an out so many times. Han did and he’s dead, you did and you barely escaped. There are some people that just can’t be saved,” Poe had shooed away the porg to mop up the last of the mess.

“We just haven’t found the right approach. Speaking to him through the Force is definitely a step in the right direction. Look, I had one conversation with Armitage and that worked.”

“Yeah, about that. Can we discuss General Gingerbread’s newfound abilities?”

Finn and Rose snorted.

“He might not be on our side, but he’s not on Kylo’s either. Not after being strangled, I don’t think.”

Poe winked cheekily, “Maybe he liked it. Takes all sorts.”

“You’re not helping.”

As much as she trusted in her friends, the Force was something Rey felt she had to navigate on her own. She was close to a truth, but she needed quiet, and to stop worrying about telling Hux he was what he was.

Rey stepped out of the Falcon onto the landing pad next to the Ishree hangar that was to be their new base. The low building, flanked by two temporary lodging units, was nestled into a wood of deciduous trees beyond Cochenil’s outer circular. It reminded her a little of Takodana.

Taking advantage of the natural light softened by the canopy, the filming team, mostly modified droids, presided over by Almia, set up camp next to the hangar. It spared them the journey to the X-wings that were lined up on the taxing strip in their turquoise and blue glory.

“You’re welcome to do custom paintjobs, but don’t change the colour scheme or overpaint the Ishree logo on the hull,” Tomlin warned when the squadron was delivered.

Almia made most of the day, getting some shots of Poe next to the new X-wings, which was why he was hiding in the Falcon at the moment. Rey would have been following his example if not for Hux’s intervention the previous day.

“For the record, we want the girl. The skinny one from the interview,” the Ishree woman had said.

Hux had expected something of the sort, “No. You can have the one with the buns.”

The mention of buns placated Almia and she left Rey be.

As her eyes adjusted to the light, Rey noticed Hux overseeing the delivery of their new cluster hardware, calm, collected, professional, all a front for a fraying mind, strung taut enough to snap. She had to tell him now: better race the storm than be caught in the tailwinds.

“Armitage,” she saw him roll his shoulders – he would not be caught flinching, but the tension was there – then turn to her, “Do you remember when we spoke in the medbay?”

Hux signed off the last flimsi without looking and walked over, “Yes.”

There it was again, the smell of ozone and engine grease, that was uniquely Rey’s and inevitably reminded him of Kylo.

“You are Force-sensitive,” she wished it sounded less like a diagnosis. Not the right thing to say, but perhaps the only possibility, given the circumstance. She wasn’t a tactician…

“Rey,” his tone was uncharacteristically soft, “I understand you want to believe the Resistance has some undiscovered advantage, but building a movement such as this takes time and a lot of tedium. It cannot be magicked up.”

“But you do.”

“And I appreciate your attempts to know me, but I would rather not be associated with a concept that was… that proved to be very unpleasant to me in the past.”

“I know. The bruises… and Kylo. We spoke about it.”

“Rey, enough.”

Her jaw snapped shut and she narrowed her eyes at him, fighting the influence, “How can you not _see_?”

Rey huffed a frustrated breath at his receding back, one she was sure he heard.

Putting distance between himself and Rey had eased Hux’s breathing a little, but he still felt misbalanced. Work would remedy that, it always did. Tallying up bills after Ren’s tantrums, reviewing leave requests to planets that no longer existed, that sort of thing.

“Mitaka,” the lieutenant scurried over, looking appropriately terrified. Hux placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder, “We have been through a lot, now, you and I. So, I would like to thank you for your service. The Resistance is launching a propaganda campaign, and I shall put you forward as the face of that campaign.”

Mitaka, with his boyish charm and puppy-dog eyes, was the perfect candidate for a poster boy. Far superior to Hux’s own sallow face in the spotlight.

“Thank you, sir…”

But as they walked into the sweet afternoon light, Hux’s hand still on Mitaka’s shoulder, Almia tottered over to them on her ridiculous heels.

“Right on cue, Hux. Everything is ready and the make-up chair is over there,” she gave Mitaka a once over, “Hello. You can go for make-up after the General.”

“Almia, I would very much like Mitaka to take a leading role in this campaign,” Hux pressed, but that did not seem to have an effect on the woman.

She was convinced that Hux, as the already famous Starkiller, was the obvious focus for their first broadcast, and launched into a heated speech of why that was so.

“Almia, you do not…” his tone gained a dangerous edge.

In that moment, Leia bumped his elbow, inserting herself between Hux and Mitaka, “An excellent idea, don’t you think? The sooner you appear on a broadcast, the quicker you can get back to developing our new base schematics.”

The day was going well, Hux reminded himself, they received most of the vital equipment, House of Ishree was pleasant about it and there was already footage for the broadcast. His personal sentiments mattered not a whit.

“Very well, General.”

He hoped to the high heavens Almia would not ask him to look dreamy for the camera.

*

The campaign was to take two formats, considering the diversity of their target audience: stationery visuals for advertising screens connected to the holonet (bright, cheerful, easy on the eye, new X-wings against starry skies) and two-minute clips, aimed at neutral systems in the hope of gaining their attention (those had little narrative attached to them).

The first clip was ready the same evening – the House of Ishree took to the project with alarming zeal.

D’Acy replaced Poe on the Finalizer, but the rest of the Resistance command were gathered in the hangar next to the newly installed holo-unit, sitting in a semi-circle on whatever bore to be sat on.

“May this message of hope speak for itself,” Tomlin stepped forward and clicked the remote with a showman’s gesture.

The screen flickered alive with a turquoise Rebel symbol on a blue background. A deep voice started narrating, “Thirty years since the fall of the Imperial dictatorship, our Galaxy is still torn by war. A war that wastes opportunities, resources and, most tragically, countless lives.”

Archival footage of explosion craters on Jedha with desaturated colours.

“We are the Resistance, not a side in this war, but a means to stop it, for good. Our mission: providing humanitarian and peacekeeping aid to those affected by the conflict. Our plea: do not stay impartial, help us preserve the beauty and wonder of the Galaxy.”

More archival footage, this time with saturation amped up: pristine research labs of the Innova Medicorp, working on various cures, flowery fields, an excerpt of Poe and Finn playing with their porg.

“We do not believe in lost causes. Hate breeds more hate, and the First Order is the prime example of this. Former General, Armitage Hux, known to many viewers as the enabler of the Hosnian Crisis, was himself a victim of prolonged abuse within the Order. Hux’s fellow defector, Dopheld Mitaka, sheds light on those complex times.”

The scene cut to Mitaka in a navy jacket that offset his pallor.

“There was a lot of violence for all of us, from Lor… from Kylo Ren,” the former lieutenant began, “But the General got the most of it. Not just from Ren, from anyone that outranked him, now that I think about it.”

Next, the picture shifted to a still of Hux looking out of the frame, the top of his shirt unbuttoned and conveniently showing the blossom of bruises over his throat.

“But even the most wicked hurt can be smoothed over by acts of kindness. Today, Armitage Hux works tirelessly for the benefit of the Resistance,” the voice ran over the video of Hux wrapping his greatcoat around a shivering child. All insignia had been prudently stripped from it. The camera panned right in a seamless transition to a shot of Leia, her arms folded over her chest loosely. With the way it had been edited, she could have been watching over the previous scene fondly. There was nothing to suggest they were filmed separately, or without either party’s knowledge of what narrative they would be a part of.

“Now Rose Tico will talk about how ‘saving what we love’ is the sure-fire way to a prosperous society…”

*

The broadcast concluded with the customary “protecting today, for a fairer tomorrow”, and Hux rounded on Tomlin.

“This is cheap!”

“People have cheap tastes,” the merchant shrugged, “You wanted to rebrand, and here it is: the personal touch, refugee orphans, a redemption arc, all the tropes. We’ll throw some fluffy critters and a love story into the next one and shout ‘bingo!’”

“ _You_ agreed to represent a cause, not dabble in yellow press,” Hux stabbed at him.

“I frankly don’t get what you’re so worked up about. Do you regret leaving the Order? Are you being torn apart?”

The assembly watched him like the beady eyes of recorder droids during his conversation with Rey, like he would never leave that room, forced to deny everything he built his life around, over and over again. He could sense they already half-believed the broadcast story: a neglected child at the helm of a war machine, beaten into compliance, denied the barest shreds of human comfort, it all seemed to fit so conveniently. They wanted a success story or, better yet, a repentant martyr who would perish in some heroic deed and spare them the trouble. Someone like Vader…

 “I’m not Ren!” he snarled, “You’ve got the wrong evil megalomaniac!”

The room went deathly quiet, but through the churning thrum of the blood in his ears Hux heard Rey’s quiet reproach, “How do you not see?”

He had been content with being invisible as he rose through the ranks of the Order, nothing more than the two stripes on his coat sleeve. Content to be blinded himself by the System that gave him purpose. Now the System no longer worked.

No, it was not about that at all. It was, in fact, so simple, Hux would have laughed.

He lost to Ren.

He kriffing defected, forsaking everything he had built for the promise of trust from a scavenger girl, and Ren, probably throwing a tantrum right this second, was still more desirable to the Resistance.

Hux stood, struggling to regain some kind of composure, “You’ll excuse me.”


	4. On the Precipice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one has a sand joke in it!
> 
> Hux deals with the rejection of the Resistance, and there is only one way his thoughts can turn - back to Ren and their shared experience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! So many comments! They make me feel alive! Thank you so much for your support, it's awesome. You know what else is awesome? Art! So if you feel inspired - feel free to draw a thing ;)  
> A shorter chapter this time, just because I wanted a bit of a break before the stuff in the next one. It's all about to go nice and explosive (literally).

On his way into the city Hux compiled a mental list of the emotions appropriate for the occasion:

Anger, obviously.

Betrayal, he was, once again, a pawn to someone’s agenda.

Disgust, for the Resistance claiming the moral high ground.

Disappointment, with himself.

Fatigue, because this had happened before.

Numbness, a coping mechanism.

Ren, not an emotion, just there, part of the background noise.

In a descending alphabetical list that kept him distracted from the itching in his palms begging him to slam the transport into the slipway barrier.

The dazzling lights of Cochenil cast a reddish glow into the clouds, and as Hux drew closer to the metropolis neon signs appeared, promising lakeside bars, elite apartments and breath-taking entertainment. Breath-taking, Hux chuckled.

Rebels had a particular way of breathing, he had noticed on his first day, full, loud, huffy, like after a run. General Organa was probably huffing into a mug of caf about now, as discomfited by the broadcast as he was, but keeping her face better because she had people who would back her, who would lay their lives down for her and consider it an honour. She would still air the broadcast – the Galaxy was waiting and it was foolish to waste good material over the hurt feelings of some traitor.

A chrome racing pod screamed past Hux’s transport and he had to swerve to avoid the air-wave. He was into the city proper now, the traffic building up as punters flocked from picturesque rustic cottages for a night out on the town. Sleek gliders zipped among the fishtank palaces of the pleasure district, regurgitating sequined and bejewelled clientele.

Abandoning his transport, Hux dragged himself through a chain of bars, getting lost in the streets where not a single head swivelled to follow his progress. There was a strange gap he tried to fit himself around, something that was usually there when he had breakdowns, missing now, but with each consecutive bar he felt less like caring. Somewhere between Correlian mead and what the barman swore was fuel solvent from Darth Vader’s personal shuttle, Hux thought that the next day he would wake up with a vicious hangover, pull himself out of bed and continue working on those kriffing schematics. Thankfully, that was the last coherent thought of the night.

In Cochenil, enough credits and a courteous manner would buy you anything from slaves to restored Imperial freighters to addictive substances, and it was this last category Hux was interested in. He had never tried drugs. His father had made it abundantly clear that he thought substance users were a lesser breed of beings, and later there had not been the time nor the company. But now that the mighty had fallen, why not?

The two plungers that the dregs in his personal account procured him were packaged in a glossy case and promised ‘a sweet alertness to the beauty of the world followed by a swift oblivion with a mellow comedown’. The description sounded like the blurb for some expensive tea, but then again Avrasa’s visitors valued refinement above all else. Hux was not sure what he valued anymore, but he wanted something to shut up whatever it was he felt.

He broke the first needle halfway in his arm, then tried to ram the blunt shard under his skin, before realising there were spares in the case. The linen of his shirt itched against the cut where he scratched the skin off to get the broken needle out, but as the drug took effect the itching numbed to a dull heat.

Hux looked at the overcast sky. Out there, beyond the vast curve of the event horizon, the Conquest floated and Ren was probably trashing yet another expensive console. Hux smiled briefly at the thought: at least that was no longer his problem.

*

“Supreme Leader, we have intercepted a Rebel transmission,” the captain bowed at the waist, holding the data-pad in outstretched hands, trying to keep it as far from her body as possible, “We have a recording here.”

Ren beckoned and the pad floated over to him. Once she had inched out of the room, he pressed play with fingers that shook only slightly less than the captain’s. Anger and trepidation warred in him. He would see his mother, perhaps Rey; the existence of the broadcast signalled the Resistance had sufficient means despite being decimated. Perhaps he would see the scuttled Finalizer plough into the surface of some moon. Perhaps he would see an execution.

“We are the Resistance…”

The broadcast followed its course with off-screen narration like in old holos his parents used to watch. He still thought of them as their parents, not Leia Organa, Resistance General, and Han Solo, dead.

And then he saw Hux.

Not dead.

Ren allowed himself a longer exhale than he would admit. Hux’s hair looked longer without the gel, the tips brushing against his cheeks as he moved, and those marks on his neck – Ren smirked: mine – so fitting to his fair complexion.

The feed froze and Ren hissed at the distorted image: here he was, the traitor, the perfect monument of Ren’s own wasted opportunities, a windswept rebel with a dark past and lips made for kissing. Was everyone he met destined to remind him of his father?

He rewound back to the image of Hux kneeling next to some child, willing him to smile, convinced that he’d be able to tell if it were genuine, if that final hurdle of treason had been crossed. But Hux’s face remained neutral.

Ren played the fragment with Hux several more times, summoning hatred for the image and the person behind it, fanning it into a steady flame. A fire that smelled of ozone and running engines, the trademark of the Dark Side, that one aspect in which Ren would always have the upper hand over his General.

*

The clouds had parted like bloody rags, revealing the swathe of sky, oozing a fine drizzle as they shrank towards Avrasa’s poles. Hux ended up on the shore of one of the lakes, the greenish opalescent water looking like milk. Ren was there as well, for some reason. The setting sun slanted through the mist rising from the water in a pale imitation of Starkiller’s fire. Its serenity made Hux shiver with pleasure. His head swivelled towards Ren, casting the world into a spin for a second: still that ratty shawl, boyish messy curls, boots in desperate need of cleaning. The Supreme Leader – honestly, who came up with that title – looked concerned, an expression Hux never thought Ren’s face was capable off. An acute awareness that he was high as a jawa on cactus juice washed over Hux.

His mind did that on occasion: take the back seat and offer snide commentary while the rest of him hurtled towards whatever. The moment Ren’s grasp had closed around his throat, some impartial aspect of Hux felt comforted that at last the physical pain matched its emotional counterpart. Everything had fallen apart, and Ren’s actions had been rational, inevitable and no more than Hux deserved for doubting.

They’d worked together for about a year, shared two ships and a good deal of thrashing from Snoke, doled out equally to both of them; though the results were more damaging for Hux, since Snoke preferred to humiliate him publicly.

How much effort to impress this one man. And in the end, it took a single moment of doubt to undo his best laid plans. Yes, of course Hux deserved being strangled.

He would welcome such a punishment now; it felt appropriate to admit his own weakness, and then maybe the universe would stop inventing such artful ways to fuck with him.

“To think that all I wanted was to be your equal.”

Ren still watched him, the sun’s final ray’s tinting him an imperial scarlet.

“Was wondering,” in response to the silent question, Hux’s voice sounded clear enough to his own ears, “what’it’s like being… fucking you.”

He sniffled, his nose wrinkling as if he was about to sneeze. Ren was right next to him, in high resolution, every mole and freckle visible.

“And how does that feel?”

“About as pathetic as it feels being me,” Hux swayed on his feet, reached for Ren to steady himself, and, for a moment, felt the other man’s heat through his black robe, some surety in the disoriented world. Hux took half a step more and fell right through the apparition.

Typical.

The ground leeched the vestiges of warmth from him, as he curled in on himself to nurse his solitude under the young stars. After all, there was no passion…

*

The vision caught him unawares, as he was leaving the audience chamber. He stood in the middle of it and felt the damp breeze of some distant planet on his skin. Ren reeled from the intensity of that almost touch, Hux’s shade falling through him like a gust of cold air. It was altogether different from his sessions with Rey, which brought visions and garbled promises. For a moment, he was Hux, like their atomic blueprints overlapped in that exact time and space, and he was made light, honed as a vibroblade, an object of perfect discipline.

Then it was gone, replaced by a yearning to give spectrum to the light, to soften its harsh edge with shadow, to see what hot and humid night would follow such a day.

Ren strode into the corridor, the Stormtrooper sentries scrambled to attention, but he paid them no heed, “Prepare my shuttle.”

*

Hux woke up sore and disoriented, curled up on House of Ishree’s private beach. His tongue felt like he’d been chewing it, and he had sand everywhere: a coarse coating of it in his hair, sticking in clumps to his clothes and skin. As he stirred, a surveillance droid mirrored his movement. Hux pulled out a blaster and shot it down, then climbed to his feet and trudged towards the closest pavilion.

He expected – hoped – that he would be assailed by questions, problems that could not be solved without him, data spreads and financial projections, something to add to his headache. But a pair of guests having tea on the veranda waved to him politely and returned to their conversation. That was worse.

But if the Resistance wanted a petulant Force-user, then he could stoop to be one.

 


	5. Breathe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And has it never crossed your mind that the only type of relationship we are capable of will sound like abuse to you?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This probably needs a truckload of editing, but I have no impulse control, so here, have another chapter.

The broadcast was transmitted the same evening, the House of Ishree pulling a couple favours that got them a designated channel. Within hours, the old Resistance frequencies were alive with shy questions and theories. Some queries were redirected to the Finalizer, with its superior data banks.

When the clocks tipped past the 2000 mark, Leia took a break to tell Rey. The Force-user had been out training, working off steam after that morning’s unsuccessful attempt to persuade Hux of his abilities, and then training shifted into a ramble through the forest with Finn and Poe. They were young, Leia could not begrudge them that.

Hux had gone stars knows where… How could she not see a part of Ben in him if he took off like that, Leia thought? But maybe she herself forced him into it? He acted irresponsibility. She was the leader of the Resistance, it had been her responsibility. She kept up the mental back and forth until it was time to stand face to face with Rey and tell her that her trust had been misplaced.

Not like that, exactly, but where Rey saw potential for redemption, Leia suspected a man too set in his ways and too bitter at the world to notice that change was possible. Yes, she had suspected him to be like Kylo Ren. They were, after all, products of the same system. That did not make it any easier for Rey to hear.

After Leia left, Rey lay curled up in bed next to Finn, her knees tucked close to her stomach, desperate to be small, as Finn hugged her, let her hide from the world for a while. That was how she sought comfort, that was what brought her peace. What did Armitage Hux do when he was upset? Where was he? Not on the base, she checked, and the thin sliver of his presence dwindled like the drowning wick of a candle.

Kylo, too, had ensconced himself in a cocoon of silence.

“If I understood either of them, I would have known what to do,” she said, voice muffled by Finn’s shirt, “And now, Hux will purposefully refuse any sort of help because he thinks it’s beneath him.”

Finn stroked her back and marvelled at the sheer resilience of such a small person doggedly wanting to save someone who refused to be saved.

“I wish I just woke up and knew.”

“Knew what?” he prompted.

He wanted to tell her that there was no shame in giving up, that sometimes inaction was most merciful – like that unfired blaster, the smudge of red on his helmet – and that maybe some people needed to stay villains. But it would not be heard the way he meant it.

“How to help them. The connection I told you about. Light and dark balancing each other out in the Force. It’s them, Kylo and Armitage. They just don’t see it yet.”

Rey peeled herself away from him and sat up, an outline in the dark.

“Powerful Darkness draws powerful Light, but in order for them to interact they need to be… khm, on the same wavelength, maybe. And I think it is like that with people, too. Kylo is all chaos and impulse, and Armitage brushes everything that looks like an emotion under the rug.”

She remembered Leia’s words about how he lashed out after the broadcast. Maybe that was it, the fear of being subsumed by his alter ego. She was getting lost in her own attempts to make things clearer.

“Anyway, it has to be a meaningful connection, and since I only have personal experience to go on, I’ll say it has to be… a couple kind of connection?”

*

“So, the Force wants Kylo Ren and his General to bang?” Poe asked.

“I’m not trusting the Force to tell the difference between romantic feelings and sex, so yes, it does.”

He and Finn were overseeing an art class started up by one of Finalizer’s former officers by the name of Tris Muri. It began when she was given some star-charts to work through. They differed from the ones held by the Order and, lost for words, she tried explaining a gravity well in the Border Regions by drawing it.

“You can draw!” Connix asked.

“Well… Sketching is a requirement at the Academy.”

“Could you teach me?”

Within minutes, Muri was surrounded by eager pupils, star-charts were abandoned and the whole gaggle moved onto the lawn to practice live drawing of an X-Wing.

The stream of inquiries from eager Resistance supporters has petered off to a manageable trickle, with the first conscripts expected within the next tenday. They would arrive from war-torn places, full of vengeance and a need for action, so Finn and Poe enjoyed their last of the planet meant for luxury, not a centre of military operations. The sun shone obliviously.

“Speak of Darth Vader and he doth appear,” Poe chuckled, spying Hux picking his way towards the hangar.

Finn stretched to stand up, “I should tell Rey. She wanted to know when he gets back.”

“Fine by me. I’ll stick around and watch the budding talent.”

The talent did bud most prolifically.

Freshly washed and dressed, Hux stared at a row flimsies magnetised to the hangar wall. The least provocative one featured a skinny caricature version of himself wheeling a trash bin with Kylo Ren peeking out of it, the phrase ‘your order’s up’ scrawled above.

“What, pray tell, is this?” he asked Poe, who came over to admire the artwork.

“Freedom of expression. You should try it sometime.”

He was about to bristle at the pilot’s insolence, but Rey caught his attention, “You alright?”

Here was something that would never stop mesmerising Hux: a girl a third of his age, a scrap-yard nobody, asking him, the general who ordered the extermination of billions, if _he_ was alright.

“Yes,” not counting the pulling sensation in his muscles, probably the aftereffect of the night’s drug, the headache, the general disgust with existence, and Poe Dameron.

She turned to walk away, certain he would follow, because where else was there to go, towards the annex to the hangar that usually housed a small transport. The one Hux forgot somewhere in Cochenil. Trailing her, he remembered seeing her on that first – second, rather – day after his defection, alive and rearing to go do good. She was still all that, making him feel grey and worn in her shadow. People like her had fairy-tales written about them. People like him were an unfortunate fact of existence.

And here she was, brows set resolutely because she decided to save him, because that trust she showed on the first day was still there and there was no getting rid of it. Hux looked for the lie. There was none.

“If you won’t hear that you are what you are, you can at least see it,” Rey slid the door to the annex closed and sat cross-legged on the floor, motioning Hux to do the same. She still thought he would deny the notion, but after the previous night, maybe some of the Resistance’s problems could be magicked away.

Hux sat opposite her. This was what was wanted of him. So, he would let it happen.

“Breathe with me.”

Hux huffed through his nose – there was an irony in being asked for the one thing he could not do freely in the presence of a Force-user – as Rey scooted closer. The draping tails of her grey dress fanned out around her like the fins of some exotic fish. Fish could not breathe. Neither could errant officers thrown out of an airlock, drifting, arms akimbo, against the velvety dark, slowly frosting over until their bodies were cocoons of ice.

“Do you have nightmares?” Rey asked, troubled by his silence.

“No.”

“Or intrusive thoughts? Maybe you get stuck in loops doing something?”

“No.”

“Well then…”

“I apologise that I am not traumatised in a way convenient for you.”

Rey bristled, “That’s not… Speaking to you is like pulling teeth. Would it hurt to open up?”

“And that would miraculously make me better?” the same impassive tone; palms folded over his knees, fingers still. Fake, all of it, it had to be.

“If we talk about these issues, we can find a way out.”

“It is a pointless exercise.”

“Humour me,” maybe if she left it up to him to decide the rules…

“Very well,” Hux took a measured breath, “You believe Ren and I share some form of meaningful connection, and that my Force abilities are testimony to that. To what end this connection exists, I can only guess: converting Ren back to the light, dismantling the Order, something. Judging by Dameron’s salacious comments, you expect that connection to be realised through sexual intercourse. And then all will be well.

Am I sexually attracted to Ren? Yes, as I have been to a number of individuals throughout my life in situation where such behaviour would have been inappropriate, so I chose not to act on it. Have the effects directly preceding my defection been traumatic? Yes, more so because Ren has consistently failed to recognise my integrity as a human being, while simultaneously keeping me trapped in a position of subservience by making me indispensable to himself. Did he mean to hurt me? Probably not; it was an easy way to establish dominance in a volatile situation, he might have done it out of fear. For the same reason, any apology he might produce will be meaningless. Am I afraid of him? Not anymore. Do I believe he can change? Not in his current position. He has a lot of growing up to do, and I would rather not stick around for that.

There, you have it, Rey. If you think I have not analysed every outcome of every interaction I have had with Ren in an attempt to cut my losses, you are mistaken. And has it never crossed your mind that the only type of relationship we are capable of will sound like abuse to you?”

Rey’s lips trembled on the verge of something – not tears – like was sorting through responses too fast to voice them in full, unable to settle on one. She rested her hand in the loose grip of his, as if the physical contact would stop everything spinning out of control. But there was no traction between them and her mind kept slipping even if her hand did not.

Finn rushed into the room without knocking, his face assuming a ‘what the frick’ expression at the sight of Hux and Rey holding hands, before he blurted out the message, “Resistance followers on Kashyyk are being blockaded, the ones that promised us a ship-worth of supplies. Leia wants both of you in ops.”

Rey scrambled to her feet, followed closely by Hux. Both rubbed their hands on their clothes without realising.

The Operations Centre was a cleared-out corner of the hangar with a bank of monitors and star-chart projectors. Kaydel Connix was furiously trying to work a glitch out of one of them under Leia’s stern stare. Though as Rey, Finn and Hux entered, all attention switched to them.

“A reclaimed frigate, trapped in Kashyyk’s orbit by three Order ships. One’s a Resurgent-class, by the looks of it,” D’Acy reported, “Our frigate is getting away, barely. They’re in an asteroid field and the connection keeps dropping.”

Once that was clear, Leia stepped forward, “If we are to send the Finalizer there, we will lose connection with it as well. If we are to maintain contact, one of us: Rey or myself, must fly there, while the other stays here. That way, we can communicate through the Force.”

She pointedly did not look at Hux, but he had observed her enough to understand the slight pinching of her lips. Rey was already stepping forward, when he undercut her, “A Resurgent-class Destroyer has a weak spot in its shields along the dorsal radar installation. Not knowing that in battle would have cost you the ship.”

He strode to the centre of the room, hands clasped behind his back, voice clear. It did not matter, after all, what they thought of him, as long as he was useful, indispensable even. And that was a role he knew well.

“Being intimately familiar with Finalizer’s strengths and weaknesses, I am suitably equipped to oversee this encounter. And I shall be in contact with either Rey or General Organa.”

Hux flexed his fingers sharply and someone’s mug shattered on the table in front of him. Several people gasped and backed away, but most were regarding him with newly discovered awe.

Leia looked most pleased, in her peculiar, sad way, “That sounds fair. Choose your pilots, and the Falcon will take you to your ship.”

Hux could not resist the habit of clicking his heels to her before sweeping out of the room, though the effect was diminished by the lack of his greatcoat, and by the fact that he had seen Rey mirror his motion out of sight with her own fingers. And then Dameron tagged along, of course, but overall, Hux convinced himself he was fine.

Up above the spotless blue sky of Avrasa, the Finalizer greeted its General with polished black floors and the quiet hum of droids. Most of the crew were planetbound, and those few who stayed for maintenance had scrambled to their stations to prepare to a hasty departure. Hux exited the Millennium Falcon at the head of the team he had chosen from the former Order officers familiar with his lightning warfare tactics.

Poe’s squad of X-Wings, flown by what remained of the Resistance’s golden pilots, landed in aft bay 7 along with the Falcon, which did not bother cooling its engines before zipping back out. Hux hoped the pilots would stay there, while he himself marched onto the bridge to the sound of his crew standing to attention and the subdued greetings of ‘General, sir’.

“Status,” he barked to countermand how electric he felt.

“Full fuel, all systems online. Shields at 30 per cent. Coordinates set. We’re ready for the jump.”

“Proceed,” Hux braced himself a little as the space warped and they left Avrasa far behind, “As soon as we exit Hyperspace, prepare the ion cannons.”

He had done something of this sort before, with the enemy ships in pincer formation attacked by a solitary Star Destroyer. The goal was to break them up first, release the TIEs to take care of the small fry, while the Finalizer itself focused on the main target. Once Hux mentally ran through the scheme, he felt a gentle tapping, like the fall of water in a drip fountain – Rey was checking on him. Her voice, or whatever people had in Force links, sounded too young, “I’m glad you’re going. You will see Kylo.”

Hux allowed himself a private smile, cut short as he was notified the ship was exiting Hyperspace and that the canons would charge in 20 seconds.

The Finalizer stuttered sharply, losing speed and levelling above the asteroid field in Kashyyk’s orbit. Opposite it, almost perfectly symmetrical, the Conquest floated, huge against the Ruthless and the Victorious, both Venator-class cruisers that flanked it. The Rebel frigate was nowhere to be seen.

“Canons ready, sir.”

Hux took a deep breath, “Fire on the flagship.”


	6. Do Not Go Gentle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux finally articulates what he wants. And it has more to do with what he needs than he'd care to admit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the gorgeous reviews, they've given me ideas in the development of this chapter, so this work is as much yours as it is mine.  
> It's chapter 6 and they still haven't boned. Does that count as slow burn? But things are getting heated so *rubs hands together* soon.

The sleek Upsilon shuttle cut up the Chommell sector with erratic jumps in and out of hyperspace, weaving past established routes, drawing ever closer to the small planet in the Naboo system. It flew cloaked, equally unheard by and deaf to the rest of the Galaxy, but one voice managed to cut through non-the-less.

Ren, gloved hands tight on the flight stick, welcomed it. He needed a tether, her grounding presence in the face of what was to come. The Force roiled around him, some great change was at hand: light and dark, the opposing energies that ran through everything prepared for an altercation.

“You’re alive,” equal measures of relief and surprise in Rey’s youthful voice.

“Does that surprise you?”

Considering your track record, yes, Rey thought, but it was fleeting, hardly the appropriate notion to share.

“Armitage took the Finalizer to break your blockade on Kashyyk.”

Ren remembered some quivering captain briefing him on the plan to intercept a frigate of Rebel sympathisers, but it had seemed irrelevant at the time. And now Rey sounded invested in it because of some person, “Who?”

“Armitage Hux… General Hux. Kylo, you don’t know his name?”

He stalled between “Where is he?” and “Why would I?” and some general sound of surprise because of course Hux would have a name like solitude. Hux was out there, then, at the helm of the Finalizer, not dulled down to a nurse that wrapped children in coats all day.

Good. That felt right, somehow. Ren wished it was a broadcast: Hux backlit by the exploding hulks of ships, shouting orders, his lips twisting like the edges of a wound.

“What’s he doing?”

Rey hesitated, trying to come up with a verbal summary of what she thought was happening.

The scene stood clear before he eyes, as if she too was on the bridge of the Finalizer, watching as the charge from the twin ion cannons ploughed through the dorsal fault-line of the Conquest’s shields, as the Star Destroyer gave a mighty shudder and escape pods, like spores, shot off from its hull.

The Finalizer took fire from the Ruthless, turning its starboard to the enemy vessel as it released the X-Wing squadron from the hold on its other side. They swarmed like bees, then scattered, throwing precise shots at the enemies’ surface turrets and exhaust ports. Something boomed in the bowels of the Finalizer, one of the bridge ensigns shot out of her seat as her console began to smoke.

“15 seconds to recharge.”

“Divert auxiliaries to starboard shields,” Hux hissed.

The frigate they were here to rescue pinged on the scanners, peeking out of the asteroid field like a timid child that spied on their parents fighting.

The Victorious, beset by X-Wings, tried to manoeuvre towards the frigate; it must have come up on their scanners as well, but the Finalizer’s cannons came to full charge and twin beams of scarlet light clipped the Star Destroyer, opening its hull like a tin can. Rey felt the lives snuffed out and the hot reek of metal, overlaid by Hux’s thoughts, the breathless triumphant beating of the blood in his ears which she could somehow also hear.

The X-Wings gave chase, a turquoise spearhead against the black littered with debris.

Hux was back on comms, “Commander Dameron, you’re entering the Ruthless’s target zone. Pull back.”

On the other end of the line, Poe’s voice fizzed with static, “I can do this, I can do this.”

“Sure you can, but I can’t cover you from here. Pull the squad out!”

There was a tell-tale snap of Poe flicking off his comm, the X-Wings proceeded to close down on the hobbled Victorious, seemingly oblivious to the other Destroyer’s weapons array trained on them.

“Sir, they’re preparing to fire.”

Hux spun away from the viewport, “Dorsal shields. Spin us 90 and course to intercept.”

The floor stayed steady, but the scene outside the viewports tilted onto its side as the Finalizer slid like a giant curtain between the Ruthless and the X-Wing squadron. He could not see the other Star Destroyer anymore, but he expected the direct hit when it came. The ship groaned, impact racing along its hull.

“Impact. Engine bays 3 through 11. Sir…” the ensign at the console paused, double-checked something, “Sir, we have lost hyperspace capability.”

Hix wanted to swear, but he found it in himself to wait until Commander Dameron could hear him again. They were sitting ducks, on their side in front of a Star Destroyer that would need one more shot to split the Finalizer open like an over-ripe fruit. But instead, both Venator-class Destroyers pulled up, the Victorious still trailing smoke from its surface turrets blasted by the X-Wings. They levelled clear of the asteroid field and shot off into hyperspace, leaving only the mangled hulk of the Conquest to float surrounded by escape pods.

Within minutes, the frigate, clear of the asteroid field, vanished as well. They had not even hailed the Finalizer, but considering what the Finalizer had represented until very recently, Hux did not blame them. The Resistance squadron looped back towards it in a triumphant arc.

He ordered survivors from the Conquest to be taken in should they ask for it, before exiting the bridge.

 “Mitaka, Plyis, with me, now.”

Hux strode into the hangar, X-Wing pilots scurrying away from him like rodents from a goshawk as he zeroed in on Poe’s fighter. The pilot was just climbing out of the cockpit, helmet off and hair in disarray.

“Dameron,” Hux barked, foregoing the rank. The lieutenants following him exchanged worried glances, “Explain yourself.”

“Mind the tone, Gingerbread. You’re not boss here,” Poe hopped down to the hangar floor and squared up against the former General. What he lacked in height, he made up for amply with cockiness.

“I am the battle commander of this particular mission, so it is your prerogative…”

“Spare me a sermon,” hearing the exchange, the pilots peeked out of their hiding spots, curious where the standoff between the two men would go. The three missing X-Wings were felt keenly, like a ghost presence, but this was war and not one of the pilots begrudged their leader the loss. They were ready to go home, back to Avrasa and their comrades, and celebrate this small victory.

Poe was acutely aware of that, he was also aware that he and Hux needed to have it out, before their enmity came between Poe and his friends, who seemed determined to see some good in the former General.

“Look,” he started in his down-to-earth manner, “we both know what’s happening here. You’ve joined the Resistance because it was convenient, because it would give you a chance to lick your wounds and play the victim after the thrashing Ren gave you. But as soon as he decides to beckon you back, you’ll turn tail and scurry back to the Order.

And you guys,” he turned to the lieutenants behind Hux, “You’re here because he told you, but you don’t have to be. You’re a part of the Resistance now, if you act it, equal to us all.”

Hux’s face went white with fury, his nostrils flaring dangerously. It was blatant provocation on Dameron’s part, and yet it struck close to the bone: he missed the familiar routine of the Order, the functions of a well-oiled war machine, and Ren, a man who, given some vigorous prodding, would come to share his vision of the world. What he did not miss was the blithe assumption on behalf of his superiors that he could take anything and still function. And the cause… the Rebels’ war was as good as the Order’s, just had different colours tagged to it.

Mired in his thoughts, Hux almost missed Mitaka stepping forward, “We are here not because the General ordered us, but because he gave us a choice! Because the General understands, that the First Order is not built on heroes, it is built on little scared people making a choice to be a little less scared. And this is something you would do well to understand.”

Plyis nodded along with the words, and Hux wondered when Mitaka developed so much pluck. Maybe it really was his encouraging influence. Hux himself had never thought of his relationship with the crew in those terms, he simply did what needed doing, ensuring that a minimal number of people was dead, injured or planning a mutiny.

Poe looked impressed, but he was not done yet, turning back to the former General, “And you? Do you have an informative spiel?”

“Our hyperdrive is toast,” Hux noted dryly before turning on his heel and marching out. He did not win this round.

Poe’s words tugged at him, made him wonder whether he would go back, given the chance, whether his little escapade to the Resistance was just a dalliance before the rightful order was restored and he was back on his knees at Snoke’s, or Ren’s, or whoever else’s mercy. There was something tantalising about the notion of being owned, but unfortunately the deal always came with the caveat that Hux’s every need and want would be disregarded.

In the brief quiet – if the screeching of a hobbled Star Destroyer could be called that – Hux stalked along the corridor and tried to connect with Rey. The lights set at regular intervals at the juncture of wall and ceiling helped centre him. He needed to report the Finalizer’s status, to make sure they weren’t on a dying ship stuck in some obscure corner of the Galaxy.

“This is Armitage Hux. Enemy neutralised, the Rebel frigate should be on its way to you. The Finalizer’s hyperdrive is defunct. Requesting assistance to coordinates XD20-0456. Repeat, requesting assistance to coordinates XD20-0456.”

“Hux?” the echo he heard – sensed, rather – was harsher, more pronounced than Rey’s. It bored into his awareness and Hux did not need to ask who he was speaking to; his throat went uncomfortably tight and his vision blurry. He was also suddenly alone, the only figure in a dimly lit corridor.

The distance between them, at least, was some comfort. Hux sensed that Ren was moving somewhere, definitely not on the Conquest or in one of the pods, but he had known that from the start. If this was to become regular occurrence, he needed to work on his Force communication style. Was there a protocol?

“Where are you?” there was threat in the question, but also the hesitance of a child longing for his missing pet. Hux found it hilarious, since he had just named the coordinates. Maybe it was not about his physical location. Where was he in relation to Ren on this set of scales they had been placed on?

“Ren,” he started decisively, then stalled, letting it hang between them. He had wanted to savour the victory before throwing it at Ren’s feet – well, before their hyperdrive was blown, thanks to Dameron – and the sharp anticipation, because if Ren could not return to the remnants of his toy army, he would be forced to move forward, toward the little planet in the Naboo system. That was a double-edged blade in itself: Ren would be forced to confront the Resistance (and Hux as a part of it) or admit defeat, or perhaps hand himself over together with his inane delusions of grandeur. It had all been a cunning plan, he told himself, stilling his erratic breathing, just a plan.

Now Hux was once more reduced to a cadet reporting to a stern task-master. Like he had been in that propaganda broadcast: a figure to be moved around the chessboard. Where are you? In a place inconvenient to your schemes.

Only Ren was not Snoke, he lacked the menacing ephemerality, or the experience of decades, perhaps lifetimes. He was just too real to Hux. Even now, linked through the Force as they were, the fading bruises on his throat were a touch, a seal, a promise of violence. One Hux craved, but not like this…

“Ren.”

All powers lay hushed, and as the Finalizer listed, Kylo Ren and Armitage Hux stood face to face, by some impossible contortion of the Force.

Still, there was a boundary between them, like the surface of a black mirror. Looking into it, Hux saw darkness rippling around Kylo, its dance almost erotic, Ren’s amber eyes – a glint of twin coals. On his own side, the corridor lights he stood under flared into the semblance of the columns in some grand temple, flooding the space in soft beige light. He must have gone mad, there was no other explanation for it apart from the will of the Force, which was no explanation at all.

“Come to me,” Ren extended his hand, half choke-grip, half invitation. Hux knew the skin of it would be warm, and wanted to feel it, to ground himself in the replay of the scene in Snoke’s chamber, flushed with scarlet, to convince himself that nothing could change. Not for them.

What was it Rey had said: you let him do it. Yes, he did. He hoped to find support in the strength Kylo possessed, but there was only violence and fear. And again, when he reached out for Ren on the shore of the Marble lake and found empty air. Kylo was still naïve enough to think he could fight his battles alone, that he could afford to reject Hux as an ally, as an equal. Yet here he was, not six days gone, begging for Hux to come back.

The pressure built in Hux’s mind as Ren tried to compel him through the Force link, but he shrugged it off. They were on a level now, the two cups of the scale coming to balance opposite one another. And he could take the situation whichever way he chose, no longer bound or accountable.

And yet. And yet… The smell of ozone and grease from the Finalizer’s overheated engines filled his nostrils. They had been lead here all along, drawn to each other like opposing magnets until the circumstances were right.

The choice had been made. After Snoke’s death, as his mind was still in stupor refusing to process Ren’s fundamental failure and his own pain, Hux smoothed down his hair, counted to ten and joined Ren aboard the shuttle flying to Crait. There was no other place he could envision for himself. At the head of the Order, or as admiral of a Rebel fleet, or a senator, if the Senate were to ever exist again, but always, always at Ren’s side.

He proved his devotion. Now it was time for Ren to prove his.

The mirror boundary buckled as Hux stepped forward, pushing through it like it was water, light and darkness mixing in inky swirls. He let instinct guide him into mirroring Ren’s gesture: ungloved hand slightly raised, fingers splayed, as if he was reaching out. A gentle gesture of acceptance. Not a physical touch, though, he did not feel ready to be disappointed again.

Then a sharp twist of the palm down brought Ren crashing to his knees. He lashed out, but the relentless press kept him hostage. His power, though greater, was too erratic to mount a sufficient resistance, and then there was something truthful in him being on his knees. Or was it the last of Snoke’s influence making itself known?

Hux was above him now, and close, and still like a singularity, a figure set to inspire awe rather than fear. Kylo recognised the harsh lattice of light branded into his memory, the lines that bound constellations together in ancient maps.

A grip tightened around his throat, not hard enough to injure, but enough to drive the point home.

“You want me to serve you, Supreme Leader?

Earn it.”

With those two words the connection was gone. Ren pitched forward, catching himself on his arms, gasping for breath and painfully hard in the middle of the cockpit floor of his Upsilon. The link was categorically more intense than anything he had with Rey, like there were dozens of threads binding him to Hux instead of just one. His arousal was something new again. Ren had convinced himself the Force existed completely separate from bodily urges, and yet this felt now as though the two were inextricably meshed.

His rationale was breaking down: the past blended into the present, one could no longer be destroyed without the other, Rey was no longer the exclusive voice in his head, but a tone of many whispers. Her presence had faded as soon as he sensed Hux, but she was not far off, right next to his mother, like drops of dew on a string of spider-silk. Connected.

The navi-computer pinged that the shuttle reached its destination: Avrasa’s green mantle glowing outside the viewport, the place where they would meet again.


	7. Degrees of Separation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren arrives on Avrasa, but there is no stand-off, no battle between good and evil. It's not just Rey who wants Hux to stop being stubborn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was the hardest so far to write, mostly because it's hard to follow the closing conversation of the 6th and tie up all the plot lines. The gala itself got pushed back to chapter 8.... maybe i'm overthinking this  
> *  
> comments always welcome <3

“And when Hux gets back, we should host some kind of gala. Perhaps bestowing a medal, or maybe a title. An official rank within the Resistance. Admiral would do well,” Almia clapped her hands in delight.

The Ishree twins and General Organa were having lunch on a veranda overlooking the Marble Lake. The sandy bank that sloped from the veranda down to the shore was perfectly smooth, having been raked by the droids earlier in the morning. Clouds swirled ponderously overhead.

They had already discussed the successful arrival of the reclaimed frigate Glascrow, from Kashyyyk, while trays of dainty sandwiches were carted out and tea was poured. Glascrow had entered Avrasa’s orbit without incident earlier that morning. Its captain, an Ithorian called Soun’tae, had done her bit: got the people and supplies safely to the Resistance, and let them know in as polite a manner as possible that Glascrow had come seeking help, not offering it. And no, they were not equipped to fly back out to aid the Finalizer.

People in the operations centre nodded in agreement, but, Leia suspected, for reasons very different from her own.

“It was full of First Order trash anyway,” one of them said.

“ _And_ what was left of our best pilots! Plus, yes, they were the enemy, but they’re on our side now. They helped us get this place,” another countered heatedly.

 “Will you be saying that Starkiller is actually a cuddly puppy who got really bad press?”

General Organa was about to intervene when Rey strode in, swathed in grey cloth and looking chilly despite the warm morning.

“Still nothing?” Leia asked in a hushed tone.

“I heard him ask for help and then, I don’t know, it felt like I suddenly switched frequencies. I didn’t know the Force did that,” the young woman looked worn and troubled. Leia suspected she had been up most of the night trying to get through to Hux.

That conversation was cut short as well, as Leia’s personal comm pinged with an invitation to lunch from the House of Ishree. ‘To discuss the valiant actions of the Resistance above Kashyyyk.’ She decided not to enquire how they knew.

So here they were, over their tea and their nibbles, discussing the Finalizer’s return as if it was a given. As if it somehow excused the years of Order activity under General Hux’s command.

Leia set down her cup patiently, “Have you heard of Admiral Holdo?”

“I’ve seen vids,” Almia’s smile grew tight.

“And are you aware that Admiral Holdo lost her life in part due to the efforts of the former General Hux? Now you suggest that I bestow her title to him.”

Leia let the words hang and resumed her work on the sandwich. Soun’tae’s report suggested the Finalizer got as bad as they gave; the distress call corroborated it. But it could have been a ploy. A way of luring more Resistance ships out only to be crushed by a First Order fleet. Poe is out there, she told herself instead, he’ll find a way back. If he was still alive. If Hux had not decided it better to return to the Order. If the Finalizer was still in one piece. If, if…

“Well, then,” Almia fussed with her dress, trying not to squirm under Leia’s gaze, “We should at least have a party.”

“That will be taken for discussion,” Leia replied, cutting off all further comment.

The idea itself was not half bad. The Retreat, as their base was affectionately dubbed, would soon begin to attract misfits and displaced citizens from all corners of the Galaxy. They needed clothes, food and training. Satellite Resistance groups would need start-up packages. The events in Kashyyyk’s orbit reminded Leia how short they were on space-worthy vessels. All that amounted to needing more goods, more credits and more sponsors. The House of Ishree could supply them with weapons, but that was not enough to run an effective… organization of the kind they were trying to run. Leia refused to call it a military.

More public appearances meant more attention from the press and, hopefully, from potential sponsors. It was such a long time since she had been to any official function. If Hux had indeed betrayed them, they would need to move at a short notice, and that was another costly venture. Though what would lead him to return to the Order? Habit, a kind of dependence? Leia recalled the man’s pained expression as he growled, “I’m not Ren!” There was something in those words, almost as if he wanted to be? No. It was loneliness. Now that she thought about it, she recognized the same spiky ire in herself from back in the day when Han used to go off on suicide missions and then try and convince her they were no big deal. Back when everyone saw her playing second fiddle to Mon Mothma. Back when nothing made sense as the aftermath of Endor thrust her to the very top of the power ladder. Hux looked like he was going through that. And like he was in desperate need of someone to trust, even if every rational thought in him screamed otherwise.

Leia smiled. She really ought to stop comparing Hux to members of the Skywalker-Solo family. But how else was she to define him if not through the connections to other people. People both of them shared, like orbiting moons.

They needed Hux back. Over the past couple of days, he had proved to be the lynch-pin around which the struggle for power revolved.

*

Parsecs away, Wing Commander Rosko was dogged by similar concerns aboard the Ruthless. More specifically, Rosko paced the length of the Medbay, making frantic gestures in the direction of General Sileki’s cot. The General had escaped the inferno of the Conquest with second degree burns and a broken leg, and now stared sullenly at the wall of the medbay while his subordinate vented.

“I don’t want to die, Sir, honest-like!” Rosko started another loop, “Us withdrawing without capturing the Finalizer is a sure-fire death warrant. We had them. Right there we did. Would have delivered Hux to the Supreme Leader and got a commendation.”

“Would we have, now?” Sileki’s eyes were a striking green and he had recently started to dye his hair red, “How many ships does the Resistance have? Moreover, how many of _our_ ships does the Resistance have? At least a quarter of the fleet cannot be accounted for since Supreme Leader eviscerated the data vault. Who’s to say that another ship wouldn’t have leapt out of hyperspace the moment we advanced on the Finalizer.”

Rosko stopped his pacing and drew closer to the cot, “But Hux… when Supreme Leader hears we let him escape.”

“Supreme Leader’s shuttle is bound for the Naboo System, likely the same place where that Rebel broadcast was transmitted from. And, likely, where the traitor Hux had slunk off to. Which means…” Sileki motioned for the Wing Commander to finish the sentence.

“That Supreme Leader will deal with the traitor as he sees fit, and it is no longer our problem.”

“Exactly!”

The loss of Conquest had been a blow, but one General Sileki was confident they could recover from. What worried him far more was the Supreme Leader’s obsession with the defector Hux. It had already cost them Commodore Vlahos and a good chunk of Sileki’s sanity. And yet, there was a lot to be obsessed about: Hux was disciplined, driven, eloquent, a sum of all qualities desirable in a leader.

*

A perfect strategist, but lacking the humanity that would ensure people followed him out of love, not duty. Leia mulled it over, lending half an ear to Tomlin and Almia’s gossip about the latest Cochenil fashions. A vague sense of unease prevented her from focusing on any one thought. It was not the plight of the Finalizer or their unsteady stance on the Galactic arena, but something more personal. The very thing that had her analysing Hux’s manner when he stood in the operations centre, looking every bit the General he had been. Would her son have been impressed by a man his age crafting a perfect machine of his own body, honing his mind to domination? Of course.

Her thoughts and the Ishree twins’ babble was drowned out by the dull crack, a clap of thunder, as an Upsilon shuttle tore through the clouds, its sleek lines red-hot from the re-entry. It was haunted by a jagged smear in the Force, like the memory of a fire. A presence she could not mistake. Two Avrasa Ground Control craft were on its tail and the three screamed above the mirror-still waters of the lake. The china jangled on their table, Tomlin and Almia scrambled away through the pavilion’s glass doors, but Leia stayed still, a cup held halfway to her lips.

He was here, then.

The thought no longer smarted like a salted wound. She merely registered that her unease had been justified, and made a mental note that Hux must have disclosed the Retreat’s location. So the Finalizer was lost to them as an asset. And, equally, Hux had a sense of loyalty to her son that surpassed his instinct of self-preservation. Commendable.

The Upsilon barrel-rolled to avoid the tug of the AGC’s tractor beam and raced low to the ground beyond the hills surrounding Cochenil.

Leia rose to her feet, shucking the aspect of mother to don one of General Organa, and exited the veranda. The half-drunk cup of tea lay shattered, weeping its contents onto the table.

Ren had been acutely aware of the spot of private beach as his shuttle skimmed over the opalescent waters of the lake, but not because of Leia. This was the beach Hux had come to, the one where Ren saw him for what felt like the first time and sensed the brittle light in him. He would go down there and wait for Hux to return, the lingering smell of ozone dictated it so. Then there would be a test of Hux’s choosing in which Ren would prove himself worthy of his General’s obedience. And then… He had not thought that far ahead, but having the General at his side would be enough. Hux always had a plan.

*

Two full days passed before the Finalizer was towed back into Avrasa’s orbit by a House of Ishree pilot-craft, allowing the House to be lauded for valour alongside the Resistance. The ex-Order crew were used to far more ridiculous publicity stunts, but the Rebel squadron themselves murmured unhappily.

The moment their transports touched down at the Retreat, the party was swarmed by comrades, hugging, laughing, stealing glances at the caskets lined up by the back wall of the shuttle. Hux lingered there, among the dead, reluctant to emerge into the crowd where he would once more become a curiosity.

His body still ached from the overexertion of the Force-link with Kylo. When he came to, back in that corridor, a mouse maintenance droid nudged at his leg, trying to get to its docking station. All Hux wanted was to curl up and go to sleep. Still, he dragged himself up to his feet, using the wall for support, like countless times before, ever since he was old enough to stand upright and to know that no one was coming to offer him a hand.

Ren’s absence tugged at him, their separation like the sullen breadth of distance between stars. In the wake of the exhilarating danger of being so close to Ren, almost touching him, of having the Force’s elusive power bring the man to his knees, Hux’s world looked drab and grey.

Back there, he at least had the Finalizer, a crew to encourage, repairs to organize, an agency he was about to willingly surrender as he stepped out of the shuttle.

“Armitage!” Rey pushed through to him, her expression troubled, “I thought you were gone.”

She meant to say something else, clearly, and was now mentally backtracking, but the phrase snagged Hux’s attention. Gone. There it was – her fear of abandonment – a pressure point that would undo Rey as surely as her trust had undone him. He contemplated exploiting it, dropping some cliché like ‘I will always return,’ to endear her to him, but stopped himself. There would be other times for that.

Rey was still anxious though, tugging at a loose thread in her sleeve.

“Kylo is here,” she, too, had seen the sleek Upsilon cut up the vernal sky. She expected an altercation, his incessant quest for her attention at least, but there was nothing. Over the days since his arrival, he had become as a spider that scuttled out of sight in a room, but was still unequivocally _there_.

Hux made that ‘ah’ sound he made when unpleasantly surprised and looked to her for elaboration.

“Have you spoken?”

“Yes, once. He mentioned something about you setting him a task.”

Hux shrugged, it was not exactly that, but, knowing Kylo, he was grateful that the other man comprehended as much.

“And Leia wants you to attend some sort of ball at the Ishree manor.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

Another public appearance, in the wake of the broadcast. Would he be required to wear a mask? Would they bring him in on a leash like the Resistance’s obedient pet that he had become?

Hux pinched the bridge of his nose, “Of course.”

The greeting crowd had dispersed somewhat, the celebration moved on, some unlucky sod was wheeling out the coffins. Rey and Hux moved aside to let them pass. She rested a hand against his forearm, looking surprised that it actually connected with something solid. Relief had washed over her when she saw the Finalizer on their radars. And it was specifically Armitage her thoughts went to, even before Poe, and it made her feel guilty. Because, Rey reasoned, I want him to have something, a thing to hold on to, a lifeline. Why not yourself and Finn, then? Or Poe? Or Leia? Or anyone who is more deserving that two murderers? Yes, they do not deserve happiness. She mouthed the words quietly as they formed in her mind. But maybe that was the reason. What good would it do to divide people into those that deserved happiness and those that did not. That would make her no different from the thing that led Kylo to what he now was.

Kylo. Rey’s stomach clenched up painfully. He expected a rematch with his General, and what would happen when he found the latter unwilling to play? He would want a fight. Or a massacre. And her sabre was still in pieces.

“You haven’t changed your mind about talking about stuff?”

The corner of Hux’s mouth twisted wryly in lieu of a response. He felt like he had done quite a lot of talking recently. But now was not the time to dwell on the feeling of exhilaration he got from addressing Ren from a position of control.

“I have not.”

It was not difficult for him to continue avoiding her imploring looks, with the report he delivered to Leia – the typed copy of which had mysteriously been corrupted to read ‘General Butternut’ in the authorship header – the preparations for the Ishree gala, the formal request for a banking account for the use of the Resistance from the Muun embassy. General Organa treated him with the same austere politeness as before his absence, through perhaps her gaze lingered on him a little longer.

Hux had almost put Ren’s presence on Avrasa out of his mind, until the evening before the gala, when a transport deposited him in the now familiar pavilion by the Marble Lake.

As he entered the guest room, Hux noticed a parcel on the bed: a replica of Imperial-era Grand Admiral dress robes. The sizing was wrong and the white and scarlet did not flatter Hux’s complexion, so the parcel was returned to sender via droid with the note ‘Do better’ tucked into the collar. Such robes were reserved for a different time and a very different person in Hux’s books. He did not want to remember Rae Sloane.

He opted instead for whatever Almia picked out for him.


	8. Convergence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leia expects Hux to repeat her decisions, Kylo expects to be told what to do, and Hux finally realises how to articulate his needs. All in a single, very crowded room.

“General Organa,” with an elegant bow, Hux offered her his arm, which she chose to forego, as if touching him was incompatible with some inner turmoil within her.

He wondered if she knew, if his conversation with Ren had been overheard by Rey and then relayed, in the girl’s earnest manner, to the person who least needed to hear it. Leia had not spoken to him beyond the brief for the gala, and that was very much clinical. Was she filled with the same delicious dread Hux himself felt every time he entertained the possibility of meeting Ren in the flesh? Did she have the same embarrassing urge to kneel, sometimes, in the claustrophobic privacy of her chambers, when the mantle of general fell from her shoulders? Hux thoughts in that direction were making him a little sick.

“A fair number of guests here must want me dead,” he observed offhandedly to distract himself, as they mounted the ornate staircase to the palace’s ballroom.

“That would be most unfortunate.”

She was courteous enough not to protest, and Hux had expected as much. His death would be awfully convenient.

That moment, the major-domo announced them and a tide of excited voices swept through the spacious hall. The Muun ambassadors were there at the front of the room to pay General Organa and her… associate? their respects. Robed in various shades of green, they fit well with the stained glass and durasteel of the palace’s frivolous architecture.

The ballroom was lit up like a bonfire. On occasion of the gala being a masquerade, the vaulted hall was decorated with suspended mirrors that reflected pocks of light onto the dancefloor. Music from cunningly masked speakers covered the susurrus of voices. Figures in imitations of praetorian armour, with headpieces shaped like outlandish birds or body parts of other species flitted past, following protocol droids with trays of drinks.

Having traded niceties with the Muuns, Leia and Hux wove among the guests, dodging platters of canapes. Ren’s presence teased at Hux as soon as he entered, always just out of reach, behind the next carved pillar… It felt like being pulled into a vortex, ineffable, a torrent rushing against his skin. Yet for all that, he remained lost among the gaudy dignitaries and nobles, nodding indiscriminately to those he was introduced to.

Next to him, Leia excelled at exuding princess airs. Hux commended her mask, that could almost pass for genuine peacefulness. She kept twisting a ring around her thumb, though.

“Dance with me,” she offered suddenly, gesturing to the centre of the room that was filling up with couples. Hux was about to protest, but she would have none of it, “Three steps forward, turn, two steps back, turn. Don’t fret; dance is just glorified walking.”

It was also a good arrangement for a dialogue, where they would not be interrupted or overheard. He followed her lead, taking a spot between a human couple with fake lekku headpieces and a pair of Krish.

The music grew louder and, like a sequence of gears kicked into motion, the couples started to dance. The rhythm was easy enough to catch, even if Leia’s height was awkward against his. Hux tried to watch for the tell-tale red flickers of rifle optics, or for Ren.

“It is not what you do, but why you do it. Motive is everything,” Leia, too, was not looking at him, her forearms lightly resting against his, like he was a ghost that her hands would fall through were she to exert too much pressure. Her voice barely rose above the music.

“And what is yours?”

“To keep what I have built safe. Since I have no knack for protecting the people I love.”

“So I am to be the sacrificial lamb? Some critter with a bell on its collar to lure the Kraut dragon from his hole?” he was not particularly surprised, but it still smarted that his loyalty was so easily discarded, “Why do you think he will come for me? Rey seems to command much more of his attention.”

“If he had followed your summons here…”

A realisation dawned on Hux, almost making him miss a step, “You believe I have betrayed you to the Order, to Ren. Ah, General, I thought you more generous.”

“The heart is deceitful above all things,” she could have been speaking about either of them, “I bear you no ill will, Armitage Hux. But some things cannot be forgiven.”

The music ceased at the top of a crescendo and the partners bowed to each other. Leia regarded him with a tight-lipped smile.

He thanked her for the dance. Perhaps the bounty hunters were getting lazy if he had made it this far. But still, better to withdraw to someplace which was not the giant target of the mosaic dancefloor.

Leia did not stop Hux as he walked off, snatching up a flute glass of something fizzy from a passing droid. Worry tugged at her, and a desperate desire for the tension of the past four days to be over, even if it meant going up in flames.

The plan was flawless. If Ren would resort to violence, it would remind the guests who the enemy was. An indiscriminately cruel Order against a fair and peaceful Resistance. And if there were casualties, well, sacrifices must be made. She remembered Scarif. Who were the people flying Rogue One? Were they liars and murderers? Were they lovers? Did they choose or succumb to circumstance?

Hux rested his back against a column, rows of which marched along the walls of the ballroom, like an artificial forest. Damn Resistance fighters, damn propaganda drivel about saving what you love being the ultimate cause. Greater sacrifices were made for the sake of a regime, than the personal affections of one man. The admission came to him easily: what bound him and Ren was dictated by more than fear and a bevy of hormones. Still, General Organa transposed her own decisions onto him – heart over duty, sentiment over pride.

*

Kylo Ren had to Force-suggest his way past security, but once inside the dazzling Ishree palace, he was dismissed as just another eccentric guest. Not enough people knew what the First Order’s Enforcer looked like, and those that did often did not live long enough to tell the tale. He was robed in black and masked, moving among the guests like a funerary spirit. But they were like gaudy fish to him, or tall grass to be swept away in passing. This was where he would confront his greatest weakness, and emerge victorious. All else was inconsequential.

He stopped by a twisting pillar on the edge of the room to get his bearings, when the guest next to him turned with a smile, “Well?”

The bruises had faded completely, but the stiff collar cast a seductive shadow across Hux’s throat. The midnight blue of his jacket was shot through with gold, blossoming into a sunburst over his right shoulder like a blaster wound, bleeding gold into the faux cape draped across his back.

Even with the limited view afforded by Ren’s mask Hux looked mesmerising. All the more so because Ren remembered the terrified crease of Hux’s features as he struggled like a speared fish in his grasp. The Jedi had fixed their broken crockery with gold – veins of it repeating the jagged fracture lines – and the Force around Hux swirled in injured stutters, gold and brittle and beautiful. His General. Armitage Hux. Savouring the name, Ren could even forgive the slight of having the uniform he ordered returned.

“I see you have not made an effort, as per usual,” Hux smirked with a hint of teeth. Ren moved to remove his mask, but the other man rested his gloved fingers against the voice modulator, “Keep it on.”

There was a flash of fear in his tone. This barrier, however ephemeral, gave him the illusion of being separated from Ren, and distance meant safety. Even the touch he allowed himself was too much. Hux withdrew his hand and curled it against the bowl of his empty glass.

They circled, taking in the measure of each other, the two paces between them like parsecs of dead space. Ren’s Force signature tasted of salt and bitter almonds. He was too close, and, if not for the throng of guests, it would have been too much like last time. Hux was too focused on keeping his breathing even and wading through the black spots in his vision to notice much else. Least of all, the red dot that crept up the navy folds of his jacket to hover above his heart.

Ren did notice. And the moment the muffled shot rang out over the gathering, an invisible wave pulled the bullet off course in a contorted arc. It whined through the air and struck a portly Tarsunt man festooned with scarves. The man gurgled and toppled sideways, prompting several panicked shrieks.

The crowd buzzed like a disturbed hive, everyone twisting their heads to find out the source of confusion. A cry of ‘First Order assassin!’ sounded somewhere and the crowd dissolved into pandemonium. Ren ignited his lightsabre, ready to cut his way out.

Hux’s mind worked double time, fear brushed aside as the military training took over. The crowd was too riled up to de-escalate the situation, the lightsabre had been a dead give-away and an empty perimeter was quickly forming around him and Ren.

They were backed against the wall adjoining to the one with the entrance doors. Security was making their way through the crowd, but eyed Ren’s weapon dubiously. They had a minute, at best. Hux wished desperately for the marksman to take a second shot because he could not see a way out of this.

All these people, wanting a show they could observe from a safe distance, a proxy war where someone else died and their faces appeared only on memorials, devoid of pain. Leia, on some quest to find his heart and prove it was human. Ren, next to him, waiting for a prompt, almost there on the cusp of trust. Hux closed his eyes, shutting them all out. There were a lot of silent spaces in his mind, shut doors which he flung open, wading through years’ worth of supressed memories, looking for patterns, for threads to tie it all together, the warp and weft of experience that made him.

What do I want?

The mental echo sounded bizarrely like Rey. She had it figured out all along, the artless girl from nowhere and everywhere, when she told him he could always choose…

In Snoke’s chamber, face to face with Ren’s fear, with his own uncertainty, it was not the pain or the humiliation that wounded Hux. Ren did not see him then, he saw a problem to be fixed and the shadow of Luke where Hux stood. He would not have heard if Hux were to say,

“Stop.”

They did. The whole roiling mass of bodies came to a halt, like flies caught in amber. He felt the cold of Starkiller’s frozen pelt, containing the flaming core moments before meltdown. At his side, Kylo shifted, surveying the room. His sabre spat sparks onto the polished floor. It would take him minimal effort to cut a scarlet swathe through the immobilized crowd. The Force unfolded around him, so perhaps he could kill every single living being in the room. The only obstacle was Hux looking at him with those maddeningly green eyes.

The moment lasted the length of an exhale and then the harsh-lighted blade of Ren’s lightsabre died and he clipped it to his belt.

Hux took hold of Ren’s hand and guided him through the crowd. He caught sight of Leia in passing, standing stock still, but not locked in the same Force-induced rigour that bound the other guests. She had an air of dignified sadness about her. Ren twisted around for another look at her, but Hux did not stop.

They walked down the steps in utter silence, not even the decorative pennants snapping in the night breeze. And they walked down the whispering sand to the edge of the lake. _The_ edge of the lake, Hux noted.

He breathed in again and the sound flooded back into the world: the gala’s hubbub, the deep rumble of the distant city, small plops of the water hitting the shore. But for now, they were alone.

Ren fumbled with the catches on his mask and tore it off, “What were you thinking!? I saved your life! And you turned tail and ran!”

There were sleepless shadows under his eyes, his lips were scabbed from being bitten and the scar that bisected his face was flushed a dark red.

“And I saved yours. Along with what remains of the Order’s reputation,” Hux bit out.

Here in the half-light there was no separation between them, not even the barrier of Ren’s mask.

“Did I pass the test?”

“What?”

Ren reached out towards Hux and the other man startled, taking an instinctive step back. This felt too real, too close. It struck him how little time had passed since Ren’s phantom grasp closed over his throat on the Supremacy. There was no way a person could change in such a short time, so now Ren would finish what he started, extinguish his life like a snuffed-out candle. And all that was said and done would come full circle.

Ren’s fingers brushed against his cheek, warm and steady, tracing the outline of his jaw until the whole palm slid flush against his skin like it was caressing the familiar weight of a slugthrower’s grip. Hux blinked, eyelashes fluttering against Ren’s thumb that rested at the corner of his eye.

“I missed you. Will you come back?”

It was so bizarre to hear a statement that was not an order come out of Ren’s mouth that Hux huffed a disbelieving laugh, the tension cresting and crashing within him in a single breath. Ren’s palm shifted to cup his jaw, the grip verging on painful, a possessive gleam in his eyes. Oh yes, of course, he would think he got his pliant toy back.

Hux slapped the hand away, “Selfish child.”

He did not intend to be won easily.

Their circling mirrored the dance in the palace’s garishly lit hall, but had more pent up feral energy now that they were not observed. Energy that was unleashed as Ren sprang forward, like an eager hound let off the leash. The Force crackled and coiled around him, lending him a more finely honed weapon than a lightsabre’s blade. Hux danced away, light on his feet, falling back on the memory of the ride-or-die fighting that saw him through the Academy. A series of jabs, an evasion, constantly moving, small stones skidding under their boots. Ren tried to close the distance, which earned him a sharp punch in the abdomen, enhanced by the Force wave that followed straight after, pushing him back. He growled low, damp hair falling across his face. At the sight of him like this, the scar snaking across his face flushed a dark purple, nostrils flaring, Hux felt a pang of desire. It almost had him distracted enough to miss Ren’s next attack: a roundhouse that sent him scrambling back.

Hux, palms flat out in front of him, willed there to be a wall. And there was a wall, against which Ren promptly crashed on his next lunge. They circled again, weaving among the ornamental shrubbery, shadows against the faint luminescence of the night. The strikes grew faster, more vicious, every move a bid for dominance, a step through the battlefield of their own devising. A bruise was forming across Ren’s cheekbone, mirrored by a line of blood splitting Hux’s bottom lip.

Lost in the fight, Ren saw no other motive beyond winning, pinning the other man down with his weight and feeling that life beat against his. Closing the distance. He threw his hand out, fingers splayed, but this time the motion had a coiled strength to it. The tips of his fingers, still remembering the touch of Hux’s skin, fizzed with sparks before a white-hot branch of lightning erupted from them. It struck Hux, knocking him back and down the sandy slope of the beach. He slid down to the water’s edge, gasping for breath, each exhale a scream.

Kylo Ren stood above his opponent’s fallen form, the afterglare of the lightning still imprinted on his retinas. The raw power of the Dark thrummed through him, a roiling flood of destruction, passion, the ecstasy of complete anarchy. And here before him was a man who was all structure, rigid lines cracked and misaligned by that lightning strike, a mechanism of bent cogs and fractured wheels, a system out of sync.

Hux finally managed to get some air into his protesting lungs. His eyes were streaming and something felt broken. He raised his eyes at Ren, towering over him like a swirling blot of ink in the waters of the Force. There was conflict in those brown eyes, the irises swallowed almost completely by the blown pupils, and it ran through every inch of Kylo’s body: the tight curl of his fingers, his legs spread ever so slightly, the set of his shoulders. He was the Supreme Leader he had proclaimed himself to be, now for the first time, with not only raw power at his fingertips, but also a strange kind of ferocious control. A reason to the madness – the making of a leader.

And there, between the cracks, fighting with the need for destruction – Hux could barely allow himself to believe – the spark that would make the Galaxy kneel of its own volition. Mercy.

Ren offered his hand to Hux.

When it was ignored, he lowered himself to his knees slowly, suddenly aware of just how much his body hurt, and rested both hands on Hux’s forearms, holding him up as the other man coughed and evened out his stuttering breath.

“You’re here.” Before, he would have felt triumphant at subjugating a living thing, but now his shoulders slumped with the weight of it. The past few days imprinted in him an awareness of the small values ripped from his life when Hux was not there. And now he was here and he needed… something. Kylo should ask what it was. Later. For now, holding Hux was enough.

Was being held enough for Hux? He was still struggling to breathe, fine tremors racking his frame. Finally, his eyes refocussed on Ren’s face and he moved to bring with face on a level with Ren’s, “Yes.”

Yes.

Sealed with a kiss, searing like the strike of lightning, but longer, deeper, harrowing them both to the core. In it, Hux submitted utterly, allowing his mouth to be explored by Ren’s questing tongue. Ren tasted blood and the slightly scalloped edges of the other man’s teeth, his fingers coming up to tangle in Hux’s hair, holding him in place until Ren was sated with that taste and heat.

Hux’s lip started bleeding again and Ren dragged a scarlet line down his chin, like the face-paint worn by Nabooian royalty. Hux smiled into the touch. A strange, wild expression on a face that was usually all control.

“I never left.”


	9. I Will It Were So

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Equilibrium is a terribly ungrateful state. One there is no way out of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm an emotional mess rn and I think it shows. Suffice to say, however much I try to give these two a peaceful, fulfilling ending, they seem hellbent on being miserable.

Rey woke up to a sensation like the snap of an elastic band against her skin, or a match struck into light. She sat bolt upright, scanning the room for danger. There was none. Finn snuffled softly in the cot next to hers, clothes were piled on the chair, pieces of Luke’s lightsabre on her nightstand. Still, the young woman could not shake the feeling that something was wrong.

She reached in, towards the carefully warded part of her mind reserved for communications with Kylo. It was empty. The protective barriers were intact, guarding against a presence that had fled. Relief flooded her – there would be no confrontation, no match to the death, Kylo would leave them in peace – then, hot on its heels, panic. It was some new deception, and she was not ready.

Swallowing against the lump in her throat, Rey sat crosslegged there on the cot and forced her mind to seek out the faint traces of their connection, like a guideline she knew had frayed into nothing somewhere in the darkness ahead.

The scene stayed almost the same: a close, dark room, but she was no longer part of it, instead floating at some impossible angle of view, the image swimming like an unfocused hologram. The room resembled the one she was in: matt walls, a cot like hers, two figures crouched on it, a snarling tangle of limbs and half-discarded clothing, Kylo’s hands carding through mussed red hair. In previous visions, she had only ever seen Kylo alone, disconnected from his environment. This time she saw everything: the undulating bodies, the shift of light on the walls, but soundless, like they were underwater. Or was it just that quiet? And this – whatever it was – maybe, it was the result of both Kylo and Hux being force-sensitive. Or maybe her hunch had been right and the two men were connected in some intangible way.

That had to be good, right? They would balance each other out in the Force, they would be happy and, hopefully, too preoccupied with each other to have much time for planning world domination. At least, that was what Poe had jokingly suggested.

The blur of her vision spared her the details, for which Rey was infinitely grateful. Just the sensation of the both of them together in silence was enough to make her flesh crawl.

Kylo ghosted his palm up Hux’s chest and Rey’s fingers twitched involuntarily, echoing his motion. She felt the humid air tingle against his bare skin as if it were her own, the velvety softness of Hux’s throat as Kylo palm came to encircle it, then squeezed. For a second, Rey was both clenching her fingers in a choking grasp and feeling the breath stick in her throat as her windpipe was crushed shut.

She screamed.

*

Hux was intimately familiar with the interior of the Upsilon-class shuttle nestled in an overgrown ravine, he still had a topographic map of the weapons console across his ribs, and yet Ren led him inside as if it were a temple. It stood askew and everything was at a slant as they felt their way into the cockpit.

The panic at the Gala lent them enough of a diversion to get to the Upsilon, but it was only a matter of time before the huge matt-black craft was discovered sitting bold as brass in a ravine that was probably a protected habitat of some rare bug or something. Hux sniggered at the thought.

His worldview had taken yet another spiralling dive in as many days, what with the Gala, and the Force and Ren’s languorous touches as they trekked through the thick underbrush. Even now, Ren’s fingers were curled loosely against his bicep, as if the other man were afraid he’d vanish like those visions they shared. Hux’s smile grew wider: at last he was not the only one fearing abandonment.

With his free hand, Ren fiddled with controls, checking for coordinates and fuel-levels. The shuttle had enough to punch past Avrasa’s Ground Control, guns blazing. Then maybe for a short hyperspace jump.

“I’ll hail the Ruthless once we’re out,” he muttered close to the nape of Hux’s neck. That was the first they’d spoken after the fight, after the kiss, and still Hux felt it was too soon. He wanted to savour the moment when no decisions were expected of him, when he did not have to be useful or ingenious and would still be wanted.

He turned into Ren’s touch, backing him away from the controls, “Later…”

The shuttle could have been burning for all he cared, Hux refused to let go of the moment as his lips found Ren’s, still slick with the coppery taste of blood that they shared in the kiss.

“My General,” a note of possessiveness crept back into Ren’s voice, but it was warranted here, in the close humid confines of the shuttle, vegetation sprawled against the front viewport in a lascivious display giving the air a greenish tinge.

“Will you stop with the niceties and fuck me already,” the words came as a surprise to Hux himself. Even before his defection he had not contemplated such a course of events as feasible, or how easy it would be to ask, to slip his palms under Ren’s tunic, tracing the puckered edges of the bowcaster scar.

Thankfully, Kylo did not need to be asked twice. He tugged Hux into the functional sleeping chamber in the shuttle’s aft: a narrow cot nestled against the matt cladding of the wall, a sprawl of discarded clothing on the floor, the disorder Ren always left in his wake.

His presence was palpable, not just through the hands on Hux’s waist that guided him to sit on the bed, but in the subtle smell, the shift of air, the sheer there-ness. Hux tugged at the wide belt that cinched Kylo’s robe, eager for something to do, and it came away with surprising ease and the soft pop of clasps. Much in contrast with his own elaborate costume.

Rather than fumbling with the hook and eye fastenings on Hux’s jacket, Ren ripped the lot of them from the fabric. The stiff collar slipped back revealing the punctuated line of Hux’s spine. Ren kissed him there, dragging his scabbed lips over the skin as he pulled the jacket off completely and let it pool on the bed between them. His hands slid down Hux’s abdomen to toy with the hem of his trousers. Ren was halfway done with the zip when he noticed Hux had gone absolutely still, breathing shallow and pained.

“What’s wrong?” Kylo waited a beat before brushing against the other man’s mind: a synesthetic whirl of fear and arousal and mismatched sensory feedback.

“Just… it’s a lot…” he had never been touched so much, or in quite this way. His mind struggled to process the sensation that was not pain or the clinical prodding of a droid. And to reconcile his expectations of Ren as a cruel, violent lover with the trepid touches that ghosted across his skin.

Theirs was a constant fight for dominance, he had told Rey as much and he would hold by it. Twisting away, he pushed Kylo down onto the bed, straddling his hips and clawing at the remaining layers of his clothes. It was a kind of carapace, same as Hux’s own perfectly managed appearance, and he was eager to see Ren laid bare in body as well as in spirit. Ren allowed it, his Force signature flickering with something like approval, and pride at having his body discovered with such eagerness.

Once he was suitably exposed, Kylo bucked up into Hux, brushing against his swelling erection, still confined in the tight fabric of his dress pants. Hux sneezed, then flushed with embarrassment, rushing to get the rest of his clothes off as well.

The heat of Kylo’s skin wafted like a halo, almost a visible imprint in the dark, red and gold, thick as incense smoke.

“Armitage,” he whispered as he caught Hux staring, and Hux saw the same admiration he felt directed at his own body, pale and weak as it was: the faint mottling of freckles across his shoulders and on his stomach, leading to his cock, lying flushed against Kylo’s.

Hux grabbed both their cocks and gave them a couple dry pumps, making Kylo hiss at the sensation of roughly pulled skin, before his hand was snatched away and towards Ren’s mouth.

“I’m not a kriffing rifle,” Kylo grumbled between sucking Hux’s fingers into his mouth.

Once his palm was sufficiently slick with spit, knuckles flushed from where Ren’s teeth grazed against them, Hux returned to pumping, albeit at a more leisurely pace.

He was captivated by the sensation of Kylo throbbing in his palm, hardly paying attention to his own pleasure, head bent and strands of sweat-slick hair falling over his eyes. Steady, in line with his breathing. It was a kind of game again, getting Kylo to come while keeping his own composure, a final assortment of control.

Ren shifted with a grunt, bringing his knees up, and then with a lurch, flipping Hux off him, almost tumbling onto the floor himself. Their roles were reversed, Hux hand still moving spasmodically, but the distracted glaze gone from his eyes.

“Tell me…” Ren said, leaning close to nip at the other man’s neck. He promised he would ask.

“If I tell you to stop, will you?”

Ren wondered whether Hux was the only being in the Galaxy who, two cocks grasped in his hand, lips bloody and parted, could look this serious.

It took Hux tugging on him sharply to get a garbled, “Yes, I do, I will,” out of him.

Hux tipped his head back, watching the other man through his lashes, the pale column of his throat exposed and vulnerable. Ren traced his palm down Hux’s jaw, until it came to rest loosely against his adam’s apple.

“You need this, don’t you?”

Hux closed his eyes, relishing the sensation of Ren’s hand grounding him, holding him together, just this side of pain. And then Ren picked up a punishing rhythm, making Hux arch off the bed and moan quietly.

It felt like dying, but sweet, falling through thin ice into the black water beneath, his vision strobing with magenta spots, the muscles of his abdomen tensing in anticipation. Pressure mounted and Hux thought, ‘enough’, hardly able to articulate it. And just like that, the pressure was gone, replaced by Kylo’s mouth breathing life back into him.

He turned away, scrabbling for purchase, leaving scarlet lines across Kylo’s back, and came with a soft gasp, swallowed by Ren’s eager mouth as they kissed again and again, while Ren finished himself off.

Kylo slumped against Hux’s chest, then shuffled off as much as the bed allowed and gathered Hux in his arms. Bunched up sheets stuck to their bodies like tropical vines set on dragging them into the mattress, but the Force was restless despite their exhaustion.

After some five minutes of trying not to shift, Hux extricated himself from Kylo’s grasp and sat up. Already the post-coital glow was cooling off, giving way to mild embarrassment on Hux’s part.

“Everything is fine. But don’t expect me to fall asleep in your arms,” he felt Ren’s hurt but chose to ignore it. Already, the impending day loomed close with choices to be made and political disasters to be navigated. He had to prepare for spinning a lot of unlikely tales if he wanted to get out of this mess with any semblance of dignity.

Ren shifted over to curl around Hux, forehead pressed to his hip.

 “When you come back, I shall declare you Grand Marshal,” he offered indulgently.

“And the what? Tell them that it was all a lovers’ spate and I didn’t _really_ mean to defect? The Order will never accept a traitor.”

 “I _am_ the Order,” Ren’s fingers clenched on his thigh, sure to bruise.

Hux rolled his eyes.

“How very noble of the First Order to drop anything and chase me across half the Galaxy, then.”

Next, Kylo tried a different tack, “The past must be purged. The Order will be remade anew, and I need you by my side when that happens.”

It sounded rehearsed and Hux wondered whether he’d used something similar on Rey. Then again, this was the most complete conversation they had had to date.

Stepping out of Kylo’s grasp, Hux quested around the room for clothes. It was getting chilly, or perhaps the dread made him feel cold.

“Do you really think I will return to the Order alone?”

“I would much rather you went to some obscure planet and founded a Sith temple or something, but it is not my decision to make,” there it was, the niggling irritation with Ren’s inability to just bloody decide Hux had grown so familiar with, “Or you could always submit yourself to Leia as a prisoner of war.”

“Excellent idea!” Ren spat sarcastically, “Should I also tell her you sound like a drowning cat when we fuck?”

“I am sure Commander Dameron will appreciate the information,” Hux continued getting dressed. A rummage through the shuttle’s closet yielded one of Ren’s undershirts with which Hux replaced his torn evening jacket.

“I could kill them all. For you.”

“Yesterday, we established that murder creates more problems than it solves.”

Kylo caught at Hux’s wrist, tugging him against his chest, “We are the most powerful Force-users alive. We can do anything…”

Hux looked at him. Gone was a time when he could count to ten and follow his Supreme Leader on whatever mad quest he had devised. That implied some ever-after where they would have the time to relearn each other, where the bent cogs of their mechanism would click back into place.

But here they were. In a middling sort of romance, bound to balance that would have been perfect to anyone but them.

“I do not believe that is true.”

*

Rey’s second instinct was to act. Finn was already on his knees at her bedside, disoriented and wide-eyed with worry. She grabbed his hand and he grabbed back, just for a moment, to feel they were still them. Then they were moving: Rey slid out of bed, tugging on clothes, prompting her partner to do the same.

Dawn washed the sky a watery peach hue when Rey rushed into the hangar, staff in hand and Finn at her side. To her surprise, the lights were on and people were milling about, rubbing sleep from their faces. Leia stood by the ops table, surrounded by a delegation of ex-Order personnel, headed by Mitaka. Neither party looked like they got any rest that night.

“General Organa, with all due respect, this has to be a mistake! Gen… Mr Hux joined the Resistance earnestly, he would not betray it on a whim.”

“Dopheld,” Leia angled for a pacifying tone, but missed and ended sounding callous, “I am not making accusations, but in the interest of security the Retreat is on lock-down and Hux is declared persona non grata due to his association with Kylo Ren.”

“Association?” “What is that supposed to mean?” a couple voices piped up from the crowd behind Mitaka.

“We have heard about a dozen conflicting stories about the Ishree Gala. Please, General Organa, order the security footage released.”

Before Leia could reply, Rey inserted herself into the middle of the group.

“I cannot feel Kylo through the Force anymore,” not strictly true, though she was no longer bound to him, she still sensed his presence. Rey shook her head, no time, “and I think he might have killed Armitage.”

Mitaka shifted his eyes from Leia to Rey and back. They were slowly accumulating an audience out of the Resistance fighters in the hangar, everyone eager to know why they had been pulled out of their beds in the early hours to scramble the Retreat into fighting mode. Some much for safety on a Mid-Rim planet.

Leia gathered herself up, sensing the tension building. She had no opportunity to concoct a credible story for the attendees of the Gala, and the mass panic of an enemy in their midst seemed erratic and directionless. Some had seen Kylo Ren’s scarlet lightsabre, some had heard the bullet connect with a civilian, but every single guest felt the inexorable compulsion that kept them frozen still for about two minutes. And she had to explain all of it when she could not even explain why Hux did not let turn that room into a bloodbath. It almost felt like compassion on his part.

“It is my understanding…”

*

“... we represent balance. Snoke mentioned something like that in the early days, how powerful Dark engenders powerful Light. And if the opposing parties are in accord, then the Force is in equilibrium,” Kylo rooted through the piles of clothes on the floor, looking for his lightsabre.

“What he failed to mention was that equilibrium is stagnation,” Hux sat in the corner of the cot, knees pulled up to his chest and hands steepled under his chin. The wall was cold against his back, adding to the sense of the inescapable. To return to the Order would be suicide, regardless of Ren’s misplaced self-confidence, but staying with the Resistance was hardly better.

Hux ran through that scenario in his head. “The Order is forfeit. Its age-old tactic of fear inherited from the Empire no longer works, and our best bet at victory is siding with the side that has public support. Then we stand some measly chance of ending up on top. This is what I do, who I am, and I will not relinquish it, even for the person I am emotionally involved with.”

And Kylo would reply, “Did you just admit you have feelings for me?”

Prompting a derisive eye-roll from Hux, “Was that the only part you heard?”

No, Kylo would never accept being side-lined for the sake of his ambition. And if Hux were to submit, to retire to some dust-pan of a world to live an idyllic life with Ren and have heated sex in the dunes before breakfast. He’d go mad with boredom, the knowledge of his uncreated Empire dragging after him like a phantom limb.

And then there was Rey, whom he, for some truly unfathomable reason, did not want to upset. Would it really be so abysmal if he did not keep a promise to a little desert rat? Oh, but it would.

“We protect the world and make sure it does not disappear,” she had told him in their first meeting, both at her strongest and most vulnerable, sitting across from him in an empty hall. Here he was now, saved according to her design. Was it what she wanted: to keep a moment preserved forever. Because she was about to get just that. He and Ren would stay in this shuttle because every single decision would shatter the balance, send them spinning out of alignment and away from each other.

Pulling his attention away from that conundrum, Hux felt Rey drawing closer, probably leading a sortie of X-Wings to their location. The Upsilon’s fancy cloaking was nothing to a Force-user. And it was only a matter of time until the Resistance knocked on the door with blaster fire.

Would they welcome it as allies or as enemies or not at all? The decision was intolerable.

Hux uncurled himself from his spot on the bed and fetched a blaster. Full charge, the grip pleasantly rough against his palm. Just in case. He sat back down on the bed, next to Ren this time, their hips pressed together, hands finding each other, cold fingers twining.

“You always have a plan,” Kylo sighed, a glimpse of the frightened child he had never been able to shake.

“Not this time.”       

They sat in silence, the green light filtering through the verdure slowly getting brighter, piercing into the room in needle-thin shafts. The shuttle’s support system cycled air with a soft whirr, like the thoughts that went through Hux’s head in an endless loop, each option as inacceptable as the next.

“Ren,” he turned to the other man, fingers tightening, desperate, pleading, all the fear and tension and loneliness of the past weeks bleeding into the touch, and Kylo tightened his grip in return, eyes blown wide, “whatever happens…”

The durasteel outer carapace of the shuttle whined as it took fire.

**Author's Note:**

> Some music for the mood.  
> *  
> For Hux:   
> Euzen - Phobia  
> Apocaliptica - Path (vol. 2)  
> Rag'n'Bone Man - Human  
> Alpines - Empire  
> *  
> For Rey:  
> Bjork - Army of Me  
> Bo Bruce - Lightkeeper  
> Aquilo - Human  
> Of Monsters and Men - Empire  
> *  
> For Ren:  
> Skillet - Whispers in the Dark  
> Adam Lambert - Runnin'  
> First Aid Kit - The Lion's Roar


End file.
